It's All In The Genes
by The Neverending Meep
Summary: Dylan Cameron aspires to be a pokemon breeder, and feels he knows everything there is to know, from hatching his very first egg, to having seen a Diglett and a Wailord in action! However, when his overconfidence gets the better of him, he is forced to travel to the mainland of Kanto for some 'field experience', to learn about pokemon in the wild, and even a little about himself...
1. Prologue

**Prologue – Pokemon Breeding 101**

On the quiet, remote shores of Four Island, Kanto, most of its few inhabitants dream of someday moving to the big cities of the mainland, getting a fancy career, and living a rich, successful life. It seems as though the more humble the origins are, the bigger the dreams are. Even Four Island's youngest residents aspire to 'get away from this hellhole' as they so eloquently put it. However, 'most people' isn't all people.

Casually strolling through the doors of Four Island's day-care, a male in his late teens wrestles his untidy blonde hair out of his eyes, and quietly takes a seat amongst a few others, none of whom are as confident as he. For today is the finishing exam, and those who pass will become fully qualified pokémon breeders. To call him 'confident' would be a gross understatement. He's not just _confident_ that he'll _pass_, he's _certain_ that he'll _ace_ it. But not in an arrogant way. He just considers himself well versed in the ways of pokémon breeding.

"Hah, someone looks driven" a gruff voice announces from within the small group, grabbing his attention, "So how're your nerves? Is the _mighty_ Dylan Cameron _nervous?_"

"Pfft, as if" the blonde replies in return, instantly recognising the speaker from his relentless sarcasm, "I've nothing to worry about, unlike someof us, _Tim!_"

"Oh really" the one known as Tim taunts, emerging from the rest of the group – all of whom were currently amidst last minute 'cram' studying – and approaching Dylan, "So why aren't you worried? Been studying all night?"

"Hah, like I'd need to" Dylan laughs airily, remembering the rough details of the hazy spell of debauchery that was his previous night, "I already know everything they're gonna ask"

"That so?" Tim challenges, grabbing a book from a nearby shelf and shuffling through to a random page, "What level…" he threatens, dragging his index finger down a page and absorbing its details before purveying a direct question upon Dylan, "Does Dragonair learn ExtremeSpeed?"

"They're born with it…" Dylan sighs, as if Tim's 'challenging' question were simply far too easy, "But only if they are born of the Johto subspecies"

That last quick addition wipes away the smile that was gradually spreading across Tim's face, almost like the sharp sea gusts outside had blown it away, and thus forcing him to try a new tactic.

"…pretty good" Tim mutters, running a hand through his permed brown locks and attempting another stab in the dark, "To have a Wailord with Fissure, it needs to breed with a _what?_"

"Diglett" Dylan answers simply, provoking a few gasps of disbelief from the small group of cram studiers, "Trust me, I've seen it happen" he adds as makeshift reassurance, "It's frickin' hilarious"

A small burst of nervous laughter escapes the studious gaggle, and Tim's pale green eyes glint with frustration behind the veil of overhanging fringe.

"This pokémon just used Thunder Wave on a Stunfisk, and succeeded" he challenges once again, "WHAT is this pokémon?"

"…Either a Skitty or a Delcatty" Dylan hesitates, standing up to address this question, as if it actually challenged him somewhat, "I thought I'd list _both_, in case you were thinking about being… awkward" he adds, as a playful means of teasing his attacker.

"Very well…" Tim groans with exasperation, "It's clear that you are at least knowledgeable"

Dylan adjusts his glasses and smirks with self-accomplishment, his bluish eyes positively glowing behind their glass façade, "…heh. Thanks"

"However!" Tim throws caution to the wind, replacing the book back onto its shelf and grabbing another, much tattier, one from the back pocket of his well-worn jeans, which were held up by a rather sturdy looking belt, "You can't know everything!"

Grimacing upon merely skimming through the pages of the tiny jotter, as if the words themselves were difficult to comprehend, Tim's tongue trips over itself in a terrible attempt at transcribing the tome's taxing text.

"…Reassure…Chase…Engage…Undo…Search" he stammers, eye twitching from the evident excruciation that was involved in simply decrypting the contents of the page. Wiping his sweaty brow, he drags his hand through his now greasy hair, and stares Dylan down, a look of smug satisfaction garnishing his face, "… what word am I missing?"

All eyes are now focused on Dylan, and even he looks somewhat anxious, wracking his mind for an answer to the seemingly impossible question. Some looks are of sheer confusion, whilst others are even fearful of the clandestine incantation that Tim had uttered. But one thing is certain; with all this thinking, there has to be enough energy being emitted to power the entire island for a week.

"Reassure…Chase…" Dylan mutters to himself, scanning every corner, every _niche_ of his mental capability, to try and decipher Tim's puzzle. Minutes pass, and a soul barely dares breathe, so to not disrupt Dylan's psyche. Waves are heard lapping gently at the island's coastline in the distance, and even the quizmaster Tim looks slightly worried at the sheer concentration eroding Dylan's prominent facial features, as he appears to be counting backwards, in an attempt to find the answer…

Several more eons pass, and he appears no closer to extracting a solution from his overworking brain, still muttering to himself like someone clearly quite absurd in the mind. But then, all of a sudden, it seems to hit him!

"Chase… Bear…" he murmurs, a bead of sweat trickling down the bridge of his appropriately crooked nose, "…Anger! That's it! Anger!"

With a leap of triumph, Dylan glances towards a flummoxed Tim, whose face can only be described by the aforementioned rhetoric, "My Arceus…"

"H-how?!" Tim splutters, his emotions crashing across his face due to the cataclysmic rage erupting just beneath the surface, "How did you know?!"

"The Unonetic Alphabet" Dylan responds, collapsing back into his chair victoriously, "Man, you nearly got me with that one!"

But Tim doesn't respond. At least not in the way Dylan expects;

A low, gravelly laughter emerges from the man's depths, like a prisoner escaping after many long years of confinement, "…you're gonna do well, kid" he chuckles, slapping Dylan on the shoulder as a symbol of both appreciation and respect, before barking "…the rest of you better be taking notes here!" to the rest of the group.

"…oh, right!" a small voice squeaks in the background, and the group suddenly clambers for writing material, now even more unhinged and panicky than they had been previously.

"Seriously, the old man should just hand you the keys now" Tim gasps, heaving his bulky frame into a chair beside Dylan with a guttural grunt and ignoring the disheartened whimpers in the background, "I mean, you've even got the same initials, heh"

"Wha? I have?" Dylan responds, perplexed, "I thought his name was-"

"Yeah!" Tim interrupts, "Dylan Cameron, and Day Care! It fits!"

"Ohh, I see…" Dylan cottons on, "…clever!"

"Hah! Finally got one over on ya!" Tim laughs, punching Dylan in the arm exultantly, "S'about bloody time, too"

"Yeah, I guess it had to happen sooner or later…" Dylan concedes, "You got me that time, Timmy"

"Gah, you've really gotta start calling me 'Mr. Lynch', like everyone else…" Tim grimaces, placing his head in his hands out of exasperation.

"Only if you start calling me 'Mr. Cameron'!" Dylan teases, dragging a coffee table closer to him with his foot, and subsequently resting said feet on top of it.

"Or at least 'sir'!" Tim reprimands, pushing Dylan's dirty feet off of the coffee table with a flourish as a ball clangs in the background.

"Like I said, I will if you do!" Dylan laughs, pulling himself to his feet and stretching before calmly pacing towards the exam hall for his test.

"That mouth's gonna get you in trouble someday…" Tim mutters, shaking his head disapprovingly, "You better kick ass in that test, kid! If you don't, I'm gonna be kicking _your_ ass, you got it?"

"No need to worry!" Dylan calls back, grabbing a sole pen from his shirt pocket and entering the exam hall proper, "I got this one in the bag…"

* * *

**Author's note: **

**Ohai. ;)**

**Just an interesting idea I had, and I'm wondering on whether or not it's worth publishing. Though it may seem annoyingly similar to Master's Degree, a fic by the lovely OceanSpiral, I assure you, it's complete coincidence. I thought this idea up before I'd even heard of Master's Degree.**

**OK, now that that's all cleared up… Hope you guys'll enjoy this. Progress will likely be slow, as I'm not really sure what's to happen in the story, but it'll get updated, as long as you guys are interested enough. :3**


	2. A Nasty Surprise

**A Nasty Surprise**

"I… I failed?!"

An incredulous Dylan Cameron stares disbelievingly at his exam paper, with a ghastly looking mix of mortification, shock and nausea crashing across his face. He doesn't want to believe it, but the bright red stamp plastered across his paper is pretty hard to ignore. It's as if the letters themselves are mocking him;

**(F A I L)**

"How… could I fail?" he mumbles to himself, blinking away his utter embarrassment and burying his head into his arms, completely destroyed,"…I-I guess that's what I get for being so cocky…"

And nothing was said or done in the Cameron household for a protracted period of time. After passing the exam, Dylan had aspirations for an apprenticeship at the Day-Care, where he would use the increased income to pay off his student loans, and look into renting a flat, then building some form of independence in his life, instead of staying at his parents', which mainly involves getting yelled at about the state of his room. He'd even picked out his ideal house, on Azure Street. It has a view of the beach and everything…

But now, it appears as though those dreams have been all but shattered. A failing grade was something he hadn't even taken into account. But, worst of all, what was he going to tell his parents?

Although neither of them are as proud of him as they could be, they, like he, were anticipating a passing grade, so they'll likely hit the roof when this bombshell hits them.

And then there's the sister.

At the age of sixteen, 'Ab' Cameron is currently going through her 'angry' phase, treating almost everyone and everything with complete and utter resent. Or at least that's how Dylan sees her; most of Ab's anger is directed towards him, for the typical 'sibling' reasons. Luckily for him, though, he rarely sees her. She left home just over two years ago to pursue her pokémon training journey out on the mainland, causing Dylan to feel somewhat… second-rate. Because she had already done something with her life, and Dylan was lumbered with his Breeding School lessons at the time. Passing this test would've meant that Dylan could gain some independence of his own, and finally step out of his _little_ sister's shadow. But now…

"Can't believe I failed…" A dejected Dylan murmurs to himself, "I'm sure I got all the questions right…?"

He reassesses his exam paper to scan for potential wrong answers, but curt nods of the head after each and every question, whether multiple choice or written, sees his confidence slowly growing, but his confusion rapidly rising.

"A Taillow can beat a Misdreavus with a Quick Attack, that's right…" he mumbles pensively, double checking his answers, "Phanpy can definitely learn Ice Shard by breeding with a Piloswine… and I wrote a twenty three page essay! How the hell did I fail?!"

Standing up resolutely, he reasons that the only means of solving this dilemma would be going straight to the heart of the problem.

"I'm gonna ask the old man!" Dylan announces to himself steadfastly, scooping up his paper for ease of reference and storming out of the house, "He'll give me the answers I need!"

In the small, tight knit community of Four Island, everyone knows everyone, pretty much. Visitors are rare, as there are few things to do and see in Four Island, apart from the Day Care itself and Icefall Cave. It's a well-known fact that Lorelei of the Elite Four resides here, and her screaming fans make up a huge majority of the island's tourism. Some diehard trainers take the trip out to Icefall cave with the hopes of catching rare and powerful Ice-type pokémon, and the Day Care benefits slightly from this gentle trickle of tourism.

Dylan himself is rather well known for his 'reputation' among the few females in his age group that have remained on the island, all of whom know to treat him with caution. For example, raven haired Nyssa, who works at the poke mart, has learned to defuse basically all of his moves, and will eagerly assist any other girl who is suffering from a case of 'Dylanitis'. Note that the girls have nothing _against_ him, of course. They just want a sense of commitment and stability in their relationships, something Dylan is currently against, under the mindset of 'living life before giving life', as he so bluntly puts it. He plans on 'living life' until he's about thirty before settling down.

Most of Four Island's residents were of the older generation, due to the teenagers 'escaping' to the mainland. However, 'The old man' was the endearing term used to refer to the Day Care's owner, not because of his age, irrespective of the fact that he genuinely was an old man, but instead because of the wisdom he bestows upon his peers. Even when he was younger, he was revered as 'having wisdom beyond his years', and the 'old man' label stuck. Although his name is known, it's hardly ever used, even when talking to him in person. 'Hey old man' and 'Morning, Day Care Man!' were by far the most common means of greeting him. Even the few residents of the island that were superior to him in years would refer to him as 'The old man'. The nickname has been used for so long that it has practically become ingrained into their small, localised culture.

"Hey, Day Care guy!" Dylan shouts, impatiently storming through the front doors of the Day Care, paper in hand, "What's with the-"

But his rant is reduced to a whimper as he notices just what he'd stumbled into.

A small group of about eight young children, aged around twelve or thirteen, were sat in a semicircle, gazing piously at a demure looking septuagenarian in its centre. His wispy white hair was sparse, and his glasses enlarged his eyes to a scale reminiscent of an over curious Hoothoot. The eyes themselves were of the brightest blue, sparkling with an enthusiasm just as bright, if not brighter than any of the preteens who were absorbing his every word. It seems almost… anachronistic, when his vivacious, youthful eyes are compared with his weathered, temporally illustrated face, which seems to gain a new wrinkle nearly every day, as if they are documenting his life's stories. Perhaps so that he doesn't have to?

"…s-sorry" an embarrassed Dylan stammers, turning away to hide it as best he can.

"No no, it is alright, Dylan…" The Day Care Man croaks softly, "Please, let the children hear from our finest student"

The inevitable smile breaks out across Dylan's face as he hears this, and he slowly turns back around to face the small group once again.

"Well, umm…" he mumbles nervously, "I-I came to talk about those test results…"

"Ohh, I see…" The Day Care Man ventures, not sounding the least bit surprised, "You were unsatisfied with the result?"

"I'm just… I-I just dunno how I failed, s-sir?" Dylan stammers, a rare utterance of respect escaping his lips with the addition of 'sir', "I mean, I'm sure I got every question right, and I think I wrote a pretty damn epic essay. I mean, twenty three pages…"

"Your answers to the questions were, indeed, all correct" The Day Care Man remarks, lifting both Dylan's spirits and confusion, as well as provoking a few astounded gasps from his small group of tutees, "Very well done. I believe that is a first for Four Island…"

"Oh… oh wow…" Dylan murmurs, now scratching the back of his head self-consciously, "B-but what about the essay? It was awesome… right?"

"Your essay…" the old man muses, placing his fingertips together in a pensive fashion, "Was… illustrious, to say the least"

Dylan forces himself to smile, whilst the preteens sitting around the Day Care Man continue to stare at him with stunned adulation. He can practically feel the tension in the air. Wound as tight as Fisherman Joe's fishing line, the choking feeling it's inducing in his throat is all that's stopping him from yelling 'Spit it out already!' at the purveyor of wisdom that sits before him; a man he has looked up to since he was seven…

"However" The Day Care Man finally utters, almost bowling Dylan over with the huge release of pressure, "There were a few aspects of your essay that I deemed… unsatisfactory"

"…oh" Dylan falters, his voice dropping to a self-reproaching mumble, "H-how so… may I ask?"

"Whilst your knowledge of pokémon genetics is very impressive indeed…" the old man obliges, "Your essay has not shown me that you have any real understanding where it is important" he finishes vaguely.

"Wait, what?" A confused Dylan requests, "But I'm training to be a _pokémon breeder_. What could be more important than the genetics?"

"Where do pokémon come from, Dylan?" the old man asks, capturing the attention of all his young 'followers' with a slow, gripping gesture, as if he plucked the question itself out of the air.

"…from an egg?" Dylan responds slowly, unsure as to whether his aged mentor was asking a trick question of some description. His nerves increase, and the multitudes of young eyes focused on him does nothing to help his anxiety.

"And where do those eggs come from?" the Day Care Man enquires, with the gentle jangle of wind chimes resonating outside, thanks to the brisk sea breezes.

"Umm… another pokémon?" Dylan stammers, "C'mon, this isn't a question of 'Which came first, the Torchic or the egg?', is it? Cause everyone knows it's the-"

"No it isn't, Dylan" The Day care Man answers, with just the slightest hint of sternness, halting Dylan's answer immediately, "Think about it carefully… where do pokémon _and_ eggs come from?"

Flummoxed, Dylan furrows his flat eyebrows in an attempt to discern some reasonable answer. Pokémon come from eggs, and eggs come from pokémon. That's the circle of life, which everyone knows, as far as Dylan's concerned. But this arcane paradox that the Day Care Man has just asked him has him beaten. Pokémon _and_ eggs? They come from each other. How can he find a mid-point in the never-ending circle of life? That's just impossible!

"Dylan"

That old, withered voice snaps Dylan out of his heavy contemplation, and he tunes back in to the world around him; waves lapped at the shoreline in the distance, but no other sound could be heard.

"…I'm sorry" Dylan hesitates apologetically, "I-I can't answer your question, sir"

"That is alright" The Day Care Man replies softly, "I expected as such"

"Hunh?" Dylan mutters, confusion now marring his previously glum expression, "W-what d'you mean by-"

"Come back tomorrow morning, Dylan" the old man instructs, "and bring six pokémon with you. I have a test for you"

"Another test?" Dylan ventures, "Meaning… I'll be able to redeem yourself?"

"That is correct" the Day Care Man nods wisely, "Meaning you won't have to tell your parents that you failed, after all"

"Ahhh, you know about that, huh?" Dylan laughs nervously, sweat-dropping and scratching the back of his head once again.

"I know you, Dylan" The Day Care Man winks, "Don't worry, we won't tell them either. Isn't that right, children?"

"Uhh… sure!" A young brunette girl pipes up hesitantly, "We won't tell!"

"W-wow…" Dylan mutters, stunned, "Thanks, guys..."

Turning to leave the room, he disguises his crimson complexion as best he can, and stammers, "I-I won't let you down, sir!" before dashing out of the door, a blur of self-consciousness.

"The answer to that question, children…" the Day Care Man recites to his adoring pupils, "Is the wild"

* * *

**Author's note: Not the most exciting chapter, I'll admit, but it gives you an idea for what's in store next, huh?**

**Let me know your thoughts on how things are going so far. Is this worth publishing? Is Dylan more than just a cardboard cut-out? Any and all thoughts will be greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading. :3**


	3. Achilles' Gambit

**Achilles' Gambit**

Dylan Cameron forces himself awake at an exceptionally early seven o'clock (well, early for him, that is), full of both pride and confusion. He wonders exactly how a team of six pokémon will redeem his test failure as he drowsily stumbles into some clothes.

"M-maybe the six pokémon are to attest to my breeding skill, or something…" He yawns into his cereal. Although Dylan isn't normally one for breakfast, this time he feels that he needs to be awake and alert before confronting the Day Care Man, otherwise his mouth might run away with him, and he doesn't want to ruin what could be his only chance at redemption.

"That's gotta be it…" he mumbles to himself, "I'll bring the six strongest, rarest pokémon I have, and he'll be so impressed by them, he'll _have_ to pass me!"

Spurred by a new bout of motivation, he jumps up from the table, whisks his empty plate away over to the sink and fills it with water for ease of cleaning when it came to washing the dishes later, and pulls his old, worn shoes on before dashing outside and heading straight for the poke centre!

"Uhh… morning everyone!" he mumbles somewhat nervously, noticing the attention that his mere entry into the building had attracted. Like everywhere else in quaint Four Island, the poke centre was relatively quiet at all times, averaging one, maybe two trainers a _day_. So you can imagine the shock on the locals' faces when Dylan burst in at such an early hour.

"…Dylan?" Casey the redhead ventures, her voice tinged with a well hidden blend of surprise and mild disdain upon noticing his presence, "What're… what're _you_ doing here?"

"Ohh, just using the PC, thanks" Dylan replies smoothly, not cottoning onto Casey's cunningly camouflaged contempt and casually confronting the computer.

"Wait, what?" Redheaded Casey queried, genuinely flummoxed, "Are you actually going to _train_ your pokémon?"

"I need to impress the old man" Dylan explains, a look of exasperation marring his face as he tries to navigate his way through the computer, "Gah, how do you use this stupid thing…?"

"You _still_ haven't learned?" Casey sighs, rolling her dark blue eyes and lifting the hinge on the poke centre's counter, so that she can assist, "Here, I'll show you. Again…"

"Heyyy, I'm not good with techy stu-" Dylan attempts to defend himself, but his sentence is cut short by the girl passing so close by him, her ponytail swishing past like a tongue of fire as she does so.

"Stop staring…" she groans, somehow knowing that Dylan's eyes were slowly abseiling their way down, following the ample contours of her body.

"S-sorry…" Dylan stammers in a modest attempt at apologising, and tears his eyes away from her curves so that he can better concentrate on the task at hand; learning how to use the PC.

"I really don't know how you haven't learned this by now…" Casey murmurs, firing up the StorEze Operating System with a simple double click of the mouse, "I mean… it's something that first year trainers learn"

"I'm… I'm just not good with all this technological crap, OK?" Dylan concedes, feeling self-conscious over the obvious dent in his pride. His pride crashing to the floor spurs just enough sympathy in even nonchalant Casey.

"Well, lucky for you, I speak idiot" she chuckles, hiding her vague compassion, "So as long as you _concentrate_" she snaps, propping his head up by the neck with her free hand, so that his eyes don't start descending once again, "I'll help you learn this, one step at a time, OK?"

"…OK" Dylan eventually concurs, forcing himself to maintain eye contact with Casey, and resigning himself to accepting the help he needs, "Th-thanks, Casey"

"Don't worry about it" Casey mumbles, turning back to face the computer with another swish of her ponytail, "It's kinda my job to help people out, so…"

"O-oh. Oh yeah" Dylan falters, scratching the back of his head nervously, "So, uhh, let's get started, huh?"

"Yup" Casey responds ambivalently, making small figures of eight with the mouse out of boredom, due to the computer being slow to load, "Stupid dialup. Why can't we go broadband, like the rest of Kanto?"

"Cause we're… so far out?" Dylan ventures carefully, hoping that his dim-witted answer wouldn't completely infuriate the technologically savvy Casey, "I mean, we're-"

"It was rhetorical" Casey grumbles, cutting Dylan short before he could prove his uselessness further, "I know why we can't – oh, about time!"

StorEze had finally finished loading, displaying an image of a Kangaskhan holding open a treasure chest. A Pelliper grabs a letter from the treasure chest, and flaps up closer before dropping the letter on the screen and flying off. The letter is revealed to have two empty fields, entitled 'Username' and 'Password'.

"Now, this should be pretty easy to understand" Casey announces, gesturing to the two empty fields, "You remember your username… right?"

"Uhh…" Dylan hesitates, wracking his brain, "I… think so?"

"Oh, Arceus help me…" Casey grumbles, burying her forehead in her free hand, "Fine, I'll reset the login data for you…"

She clicks a little poke ball logo in the top right hand corner, and it opens up and reveals a Slowbro. It opens its mouth stupidly, and creates a bright white cloud, which engulfs the letter and drafts up a new title; 'Forgotten Password?'

Two new lines appear under the title, 'Name' and 'Trainer ID'

"Now, I'm pretty sure you remember _these…_" Casey laughs, shimmying to the side so that Dylan can access the computer.

"Haha, yup" Dylan chuckles, reaching into his back pocket for his ID, "These I can do"

Under Casey's careful guidance, Dylan slowly enters his name into the first empty field, "D…y…l…"

"Ugh, you type so _slow!_" Casey groans, tempted to just shove him out of the way and enter the details herself.

"Aww c'mon, I never _use_ these things!" Dylan protests, his clumsy, inexperienced fingers stumbling across the keyboard's many keys like a blind man in a room full of rakes, "E…r…o…n! There! Finished!"

"Finally…" Casey mutters darkly, "OK, now trainer ID in the next one"

"Right, right…" Dylan mumbles, flipping his ID open with one hand and slowly punching in his five digit ID with the other, "Heh, guess I'm lucky that breeders also get Trainer IDs, huh?"

"Well, you kinda need one to have pokémon for any means other than a pet…" Casey mocks, stifling laughter over his comical lack of knowledge.

"OK, and that's the ID entered" Dylan announces, punching in the last digit, "w-what next?"

Casey hits 'enter' on the keyboard, and says, "Follow the instructions"

"Seems legit…" Dylan concedes, clicking appropriate answers, "Yes, I do want to reset my password. Yes, I'm sure… Yes, I'm really sure… Oh c'mon, really?"

"What?" Casey asks, bemused.

"How many more times is it gonna ask me if I'm sure?!" Dylan gasps, his frustration slowly building, "Why else would I be doing this?!"

"They're just making it idiotproof…" Casey snorts, stifling more laughter.

"But _I'm_ an idiot!" Dylan whines, "w-when it comes to computers anyways…"

"You're a really stubborn idiot" Casey laughs, unable to resist the urge to poke more fun at him "Should be just one more time"

"Alright, alright…" Dylan concedes, rolling his eyes. He clicks 'yes' once more, and the Slowbro on the screen makes a dopey grunting noise. It's thought cloud disappears, and it returns to its poke ball, which fades away. Pelipper returns, and drops another letter on the screen, once again displaying 'Username' and _'_Password'.

"What the?!" he gasps, "We're back to where we started!"

"Noooo we're not…" Casey interjects, "This is the blank slate. You put in a new username and password here. I'll be back in just a second"

"Ohh, riiight…" Dylan laughs embarrassedly, "New username and password, huh?"

"Yup" Casey answers bluntly, moving away from him to grab a pen and paper from the counter whilst Dylan slowly types in new information.

"OK, that's that" he mumbles, having filled in both fields, "…now what?"

"Remember them?" Casey asks, having returned.

"Uhh… yeah?" Dylan hesitates, "W-why?"

"Write. Them. Down" Casey instructs, thrusting the writing material into his hands. Dylan obliges, writing the relevant information down, and tears the paper away from the pad, stashing it into his pocket.

"Hopefully you won't forget _again_…" Casey groans, "OK, now that that's all cleared up, you log in with enter"

Dylan spends an age finding the 'enter' key on the keyboard, despite Casey pointing it out to him, and eventually enters a new screen, listing options such as 'withdraw pokémon', 'deposit pokémon', and 'move pokémon' among others.

"What's the difference between 'withdraw pokémon' and 'move pokémon'?" Dylan asks, feeling somewhat proud for asking an intelligent sounding question for once

"'Withdraw pokémon' means what it says on the tin, pretty much" Casey explains, "You can withdraw your pokémon, but that's pretty much it. 'Move pokemon' on the other hand, functions as a combination of both 'withdraw' and 'deposit'. Great for organising them"

"Oh, I see…" Dylan understands, "So… I want 'move pokémon'?"

"Nope" Casey shoots him down, "You want withdraw. You're not gonna try and impress the old man with your organising skills, now, are you?"

"Ahah, I guess not…" Dylan stammers, remembering how 'organised' things were at his home, like the unsorted pile of clothes he keeps on his floor, labelling them as 'easy access', and his unmade bed, which he calls 'convenient'.

"Withdraw it is" he concedes, clicking the link and waiting for the contained data to load.

"So…" he stabs, in an attempt at small talk, "What kinda pokémon do you think I'll need to impress the old man?"

"You're the breeder here…" Casey deadpans, eyeing him exasperatedly, "You know what to look for better than I"

"Oh no, I don't mean like their stats or anything…" Dylan appeases her, "I mean like, what actual _pokémon?_ Like, would he prefer a Ledyba over a Poochyena?"

"I'm sure he's not gonna mind what pokémon you show him" Casey reasons, "More… the quality of those pokémon. So I think you'll need to look for ones with good… IBs?"

"IVs" Dylan corrects her, "They stand for 'Inherited Values'. Basically the strengths they inherited from their parents. Like, if the mother was really fast, the child should inherit that, and-"

"…yeah" Casey stops Dylan before his monologue runs away with him, "Just tell him all of that crap, and you should be able to impress him. Cause we both know you know your stuff when it comes to pokémon breeding…"

"Heh. I'll bear that in mind" Dylan muses, grimacing as he notices that the data _still_ hasn't loaded, "Aww man…"

"Just how many pokémon do you have?" Casey asks, stunned.

"Umm… about fifty?" Dylan hesitates, sweatdropping, "I kinda lost track…"

"How the hell do you have that many?"

"Well, we're the only place in the region that offers pokémon breeding services, so we've got a pretty huge catchment area. And if the pokémon in the day-care get along, odds are they'll produce more than one egg. Trainers tend to only want one egg, so that means we get to keep any surplus, and-"

"OK, I get it!" Casey cries, loudly enough to wake up old man Jenkins in the corner, who responds with a grumpy snort.

"Well you asked-" Dylan begins to protest, but he is interrupted by a crescendo of whirring from the computer behind them:

'Booooooiiiing!'

"Hey, it's ready!" Casey exclaims, reacting to the bizarre noise uttered by the computer, "Finally!"

She and Dylan address the monitor once again, where a full box has loaded.

"OK, what looks good here…" he mutters to himself, mousing over pokémon to get a better look at them, "Hey, there any way to get more detailed info?"

"Yup" Casey answers simply, retrieving the mouse from him and clicking on the first pokémon in the box; a Sandshrew. After clicking, a whole new list of options appeared, including 'summary', 'item', 'mark', and 'release'.

"You see this one, summary?" Casey explains, clicking it and waiting a few seconds for the required data to load, "It gives you in depth information about the pokémon without having to withdraw it manually and inspect it yourself"

"Oh, that's pretty cool!" Dylan exclaims, examining the data with enthusiasm, which slowly dwindles and dies completely upon realising that the Sandshrew doesn't cut the mustard, "H-how do I look at another pokémon? Do I go out and then click another one?"

"Nah, there's an easier way" Casey explains, "Just hit the down button on the keypad, and that'll load the next one in the box"

"Oh, I see…" he murmurs, scrolling through other pokémon with repeated presses of the down button, "Oddish, Geodude, Voltorb…"

"What about that one?" Casey intercepts, in a genuine attempt to 'help' Dylan.

"It's not all that good…"

"But it's so _cuuute…"_

"Cute won't help me"

"B-but I like it! Please?"

"Don't care"

"Cute!"

"No!"

"Dylan! I helped you with this crap! You could at _least_ show me some gratitude by showing that _one_ pokémon to the old man! Who knows, it could help you out in the long run!"

"Oh, play the guilt card, huh? So if I don't use this one pokémon, I'm an ungrateful shit who doesn't deserve your help?"

"…"

"Alright, fine, I'll take the damn thing…"

"It's not a _thing, _Dylan" Casey counters brusquely, "It's a _pokemon. _With _feelings. _You should treat them as such!"

"Oh, for Arceus' sake…" Dylan grumbles angrily, "You're more trouble than you're worth"

"Trust me, you'll thank me when the time comes" Casey teases, "But for now, you can thank me by _using that pokémon!"_

"Grr…" Dylan growls, refusing to take the bait.

And after quite a lengthy period of time, the pair eventually decide on a team of six pokemon; A speedy Voltorb, a tough Phanpy, a cheerful Diglett, a mischievous Wingull, a Dratini Dylan insisted on, due to it being his 'prized' breed, and the pokémon forced upon him by Casey… Cleffa.

"Really hope this works…" he mutters to himself, giving Casey a half-hearted wave goodbye, and strolling towards the Day Care across the road, where all of the other breeder students are awaiting the old man's arrival.

"Wha? You guys are here too?" An incredulous Dylan asks, trying in vain to hide the six poke balls in his hands.

"…yeah" the student nearest him sighs. With his head in his hands, and his shoulder length black hair flowing from his scalp like a carefree waterfall, the dejected student known as Anthony Turner mumbles, "We let the old man down. We _all_ did…"

"Hey, don't say it like that…" Dylan attempts to console his classmate, "I mean, sure, we failed. But did he seem disappointed in you when you talked to him about it?"

"Talk to him?" Anthony stammers, hands shaking, "I don't think I can even look him in the eye after how badly I failed him…"

"You… didn't go see him?" Dylan queries, stunned, "But how did you know to come here?"

"He left me a message on the back of my paper" another student, this one female, explains. Sarah Henderson the brunette looks just as depressed as the rest of the group, who all mutter noises of acknowledgement upon her mentioning the message.

"…oh" Dylan deflates, "M-must've missed it then, heh. So none of you went to see him after you got your results back?"

"And upset him further by questioning his rule?" Anthony Turner sighs, "I-I'd rather not. Someone as joyful and energetic as the old man doesn't need to hear what we failures have to say…"

"Hey, c'mon guys, cheer up!" Dylan attempts, "I talked to him yesterday, and he didn't seem upset at all. Like, the complete opposite if anything! Why, if I didn't know better, I'd say he-"

"-planned it?" A voice interrupts, causing Dylan and a few others to flinch from shock. Several heads look up, and the presence of the Day Care Man is revealed, standing calmly in his doorway. Confusion rifles through the group, as no one is quite sure exactly _how_ he got there with no one noticing, or even hearing the door open…

"So, have any of you figured out why I have summoned you all here?" the Day Care man asks patiently, stepping out of the doorway and patting one of his students, a young blonde girl named Zoe, affectionately on the shoulder. The silent energy of concentrated thought spurs through the small group of breeders-to-be, but no one is actually able to _answer_ the old man's simple question.

"…n-no, sir" Anthony Turner finally musters up the courage, and replies in a small, self-reproaching whimper, "We don't… don't know. Why have you brought us all here?"

"Have you each got six pokémon with you?" the Day Care man requests, and the group begins to mumble insecurely, wondering how six pokémon will justify a failed result.

"Uh-uhmm… I've only got four…" the girl known as Zoe trembles, with four poke balls gleaming in her shaking hands, and her blue-grey eyes gleaming with guilty tears, "I'm so sorry, Mr… sir!"

"There, there…" the Day Care man comforts Zoe, stabilising her with a comforting hand on the shoulder, "That is quite alright. You only enlisted three months ago, after all, so it's no surprise that you've less than the others. Unlike Dylan over there, who has… what was the official count, Dylan? Fifty three?"

"Umm… somewhere around there?" Dylan laughs nervously, whilst inwardly thinking that his competition has already been reduced, what with Zoe only having four pokémon to contend with his six. Secretly he also berates himself for not being able to give the Day Care man an exact answer, as he's sure that that could somehow negatively affect his chances of passing, despite not knowing what challenges lay ahead of him just yet.

"Does anyone else have less than six pokémon?" the Day Care man asks, looking around at the ten or so wannabe breeders surrounding him. No response is made, so the Day Care man claps his hands, and says, "Right, let's get started!"

His remark is met with multiple blank faces, as no one has any idea of what he means by this.

"I would like you all to release your pokémon from their poke balls, please!"

"…what?" Sarah Henderson gasps, "B-but won't that cause mayhem? Letting a bunch of pokémon loose among others that they've never seen before?"

"We'll find out, won't we?" the Day Care man chuckles, tapping his cane twice on the floor as if to prompt them.

"Well, one way to find out what I'm up against…" Dylan mumbles nervously, his sweaty, nervous fingers attempting to manipulate the first of the six capsules in his hand. With a clumsy press of the central button, a burst of crimson light explodes from the capsule, and moments later, a young Dratini graces the world, looking around confused. Just the one pokémon on its own is fine, at least from the pokémon's point of view, but when other capsules burst open around it, it begins to panic, and quickly wraps itself around the nearest target as means of self-preservation. Unfortunately for Dylan, it happened to be his legs.

"Driii…" Dratini squeaks, utterly petrified of all the strange creatures that are appearing around it from all angles, including Rattata, Caterpie, Seedot, Slugma and Minccino among many others. Its sheer fright causes it to forget that it's tightly constricting the legs of its owner, who starts hopping about in a clumsy mixture of pain and imbalance!

"Ah! Ow!" Dylan cries, trying to shake his Dratini loose, "C'mon, get off now! Please?"

But his efforts are useless, and his balance gets the better of him, sending him crashing painfully to the ground with an injured grunt, remaining poke balls spilling out of his hands and somehow opening in the process. Five other pokémon experience the world, and predictably go berserk. Diglett decides to bury itself in the ground and avoid confrontation, which sets off Voltorb's volatility, due to the ground shaking, and it starts building up static energy, subsequently scaring Phanpy, causing it to bolt and knock over the poor Cleffa, who starts crying out in pain from a combination of shock and injury. Wingull just perches itself on top of Dylan's head (which is currently face-down on the ground), watching the fiasco unfold.

Other trainers aren't having much luck, either. Anthony Turner's Machop and Geodude are busy arm wrestling on the ground, but since Geodude are basically a pair of arms and a small, rounded body, it quickly loses to the powerhouse that is Machop, and is sent flying by the release of pressure, colliding with Sarah's Wooper, who fires a small blast of water from its mouth out of shock, and subsequently soaks its owner and her Slugma, which partially hardens due to the cooling and emits a heap of black smoke. This black smoke spooks another person's Pidove, and it responds by flapping its wings manically to try and remove the smoke, however a misfortunate Hoppip gets caught in the gusts, also getting blown away, giggling happily as it floats dangerously close to the coastline, but luckily getting caught in a tree, where both Caterpie and Seedot can be seen, relaxing peacefully and seeming to converse in their own language, whilst Rattata lurks in the tree's depths, also avoiding trouble.

Meanwhile, the Day Care man is thoroughly amused by the chaos that's unfolding around him, and perfectly willing to wait for it to settle.

"Should've brought… a chair!" he gasps, knees cracking as he negotiates his ancient joints into a sitting position atop the step in front of the Day Care, and watching the timid Zoe keep just enough distance from the mayhem to maintain her serenity, and calmly brush her Minccino's fur, which sits in her lap, making a small peeping noise of appreciation, and playing with its owner's long blonde hair all the while, kicking its little feet out happily. Her Audino entertains itself by dancing in the background behind her, whilst her Pachirisu has found a horde of berries to munch on, and her Poliwag is nestled beside her, resting against her hip and yawning occasionally. It's hard to believe that such a huge disparity can exist in such a small area, contrasting the quiet, happy bubble that she's sitting in, with the pandemonium occurring just a few feet away, where Anthony's Spinda has tripped over the still collapsed Dylan, causing it to flail wildly, and upset Dratini ever more. It finally uncoils itself from around Dylan's legs, forcing blood back into them, and it then buries itself underneath Dylan's chest, squeaking in fear.

"OK…" the Day Care man sighs, "I guess it's time to get this situation under control…"

He slowly reaches inside of his jacket, and retrieves from it what looks like a poke flute, but slightly different. Raising it to his old, chapped lips, he takes in a deep, raspy breath, and begins to play a soft, sensual tune…

The rambunctious riot of pokémon is slowly soothed by the melodic music, each one in turn removing itself from whatever complication it had encountered, and sitting calmly in front of their respective owners, all of them reduced to a mild hypnotic state by the cheerful charmer's enchanting tune. Even Caterpie and friends leave the novelty of the tree to get closer to the music, with Seedot helping to free the trapped Hoppip by means of a well-aimed jump. Hoppip ferries Seedot to the ground, whilst Rattata scurries out from the tree's knotty roots, and Caterpie wriggles down its trunk, all four of them slowly approaching the alluring assault on their auditory senses. Even the sound resistant Voltorb succumbs to the beautiful tune, its static electricity dissipating, and Diglett pops its head back up from underground to listen in, Wingull hops off of Dylan's head, allowing him to stand up once again, whilst Audino continues to dance, now that it actually has a tune to dance to. Tranquillity pervades, once again…

"That's better" The Day Care man remarks, stowing his flute back in its pocket once again, "Well, I can't say that I _wasn't_ surprised by what just happened, but for the most part, everything went as I suspected it might…"

"W-what?" Sarah gasps, wringing the water out of her soaked blouse, "You _expected_ bedlam to unfold?"

"Yes. I did indeed, Sarah" the Day Care Man answers simply, dragging his weary body back to its feet again, "The complete and utter chaos told me that none of you have any real experience when it comes to pokémon _themselves. _Ever thought what happens to these wonderful creatures once they've come out of their shells?"

"…W-why's that important?" Another student hesitates, raising his hand warily, "We only breed them. Why should our knowledge extend beyond the eggshell?"

"Because…" the Day Care Man explains slowly, "You are a pokémon _breeder_. But before that, you are a _pokémon_ breeder. Knowing nothing about the hatched pokémon is like constructing the empty shell of a building, and ignoring the important contents. Put simple, it's what's _inside_ that counts. Not just a sappy romantic phrase, eh kids?…"

"Ohhh…" many students murmur in simultaneous acknowledgement, with a couple bravely chuckling to the old man's rare attempt at humour.

"So…" Dylan dares, speaking up and making himself heard, "Our job as a pokémon breeder is to know everything about pokémon, from the egg to the grave?"

"Not the most tactful way to say it…" The Day Care Man winces, "But yes, that's the long and short of it. Well done, Dylan"

That last addition spurs the smallest of confidence boosts in Dylan, and he privately fist pumps to himself, sure that his remark will somehow earn him extra marks or whatever, whilst the Day Care Man continues explaining.

"Now, before I finish explaining why I've brought you all here…" he proposes, stretching his aching bones with a series of gentle cracks, "Do any of you have any questions?"

A few moments of awkward silence pass before a question is asked from timid Zoe, whose Minccino is still having immense fun tying some braids of her hair into a neat little plat.

"W-where's T… Mr Lynch?"

"Ohh, Timothy's taking a few days off" The Day Care Man explains, gesturing to a house in the distance, one that could belong to Tim, "After seeing the test results, he felt as though he'd failed me, and took some time off to… reassess his goals, shall we say? Nothing's wrong with him, I promise…"

"Aww, that's a bit of a shame" Anthony remarks, straining to keep a straight face, "… I was kinda lookin' forward to watching him kick Dylan's ass for failing the test!"

Appreciative laughter ripples through the little group, and even Dylan finds himself laughing at his being mocked; albeit partially from embarrassment…

"O-oh yeah!" he suddenly shouts, remembering, "What was it that surprised you, s-sir?"

"Surprised…?" The Day Care Man hesitates, at first unsure and scratching his head in pensive confusion, "Oh, right, I recall!"

Turning slightly to his left, and gesturing with his cane, he adds "What surprised me about today's events… is this"

His arms shake with the mere effort of lifting his (not very) heavy cane, and the group follows it to find the Day Care Man pointing to… Zoe?

"M-me, sir?!" she gasps, utterly astonished, and starts looking around almost guiltily, as if she feels undeserving of her mentor's praise, "Wh-what did I do?!"

"Look at her pokémon" The Day Care Man suggests calmly, "What do you see?"

Several eyes scan the insecure Zoe and her pokémon thoroughly, looking for some possible reason as to why she could _possibly_ be different to everyone else. Poliwag's still snoozing, resting against her hip comfortably. Audino is happily dancing in the background, most likely tuned into some music from far away. Pachirisu is full on berries, and has fallen into a happy slumber on top of them, whilst Minccino is still having fun playing with its owner's hair.

"They're… calm?" Sarah guesses, sweatdropping and blushing out of fear of being wrong, "Wait, they're all calm, because of that music you played…"

"Wait, weren't they calm… _before_ you started playing that music… sir?" Anthony ventures, also ready to endure verbal abuse for being wrong.

"That is correct, Anthony" The Day Care Man enthuses him, "But _why?_ Why were her pokémon behaved, in contrast to your own?"

The entire group looks around confused, whilst Zoe just sits there, a clammy mix of self-consciousness and guilt, due to having an example being made of her, and being the source of the group's frustration.

"Agh! Out with it!" A frustrated Dylan shouts, pointing at her accusingly, "What is your secret?!"

"I-I… I don't-" Zoe squeaks, burying her face in her Minccino's fur, who giggles in surprise from its owner being so strange and playful, "I don't _knooowww…"_

"They want to know why your pokémon behave, whilst theirs do not, Zoe" The Day Care Man intercepts, stopping the poor girl from elevating into hysterics.

"W-what?" Zoe mumbles from behind her Minccino shield, "S-so I… didn't do anything wrong?"

"Of course not…" The Day Care Man calms her, "Now, care to share your secret with us?"

"Oh, well…" she hesitates, poking her head up from behind Minccino slowly, "I-I wouldn't say it's a _secret_ or anything. I just play with them, and talk to them, and stuff, y'know? They're… they're my friends. And that's how you treat your friends… right?"

"That's it…?" Dylan mumbles, stunned.

"That's it" The Day Care Man reinforces, nodding approvingly at young Zoe, who blushes a healthy shade of crimson "Instead of just breeding her pokémon, she has come to know them all, and treat them as equals. Like pokémon should be treated"

"So… if we just need to make _friends_ with our pokémon…" Sarah calculates, kneeling down to pat her Wooper atop its head, albeit it with hesitance, "Then… why'd you ask Zoe to come, too? She's already befriended hers…"

Wooper responds with a confused gurgle, surprised at its owner's treatment, and the Day Care Man answers her.

"A fair question" he prompts, "One which deserves a fair answer. You all remember how Dylan summed up the role of a pokémon breeder; 'knowing everything about a pokémon from the egg to the grave'?"

Many students nod dumbly, and he continues.

"Well, what is between the egg and the grave, children?"

"…life?" Anthony stumbles, picking up his Geodude and gingerly petting it, "But… we're experiencing that right here and now… aren't we?" he gestures to his Geodude, stating that it is clearly a living being.

"Correct" The Day Care Man assures him, "You are indeed observing the life of domesticated pokémon, that have been bred in captivity"

Confusion spurs through the small group, so the Day Care Man prods them further.

"But what if these pokémon were born of natural selection, and not of your hard work?"

"Oh!" Dylan shouts, hopping about madly, trying to sound smart "I got it! I…"

But after a few moments of painful concentration marring his face, and his left eye threatening to burst a blood vessel, his energy subsides, and he hands his head, "I-I don't got it. _Why_ can't I answer that question?!"

"It is alright, Dylan" The Day Care Man reassures him, in an attempt to restore his fractured spirits, "My request of you is simple. You have each chosen your teams of domesticated pokémon. Now, what I want you to do, is find those same pokémon, _in the wild_. Note any behaviour differences between your captive pokémon and their wild counterparts, and write a report detailing these findings. You may capture the wild counterparts if you wish, for whatever reasons you may have, and you may also take your domesticated counterparts with you. However, both of these aspects will affect your grading, as will the quality and the accuracy of your report, and how well trained your pokémon are at the end of the test, if at all. Do you all understand?"

The small group exchanges looks of nervousness, with a couple regretting their pokémon choices already.

"Aww, why'd I pick the rare ones…" Dylan sighs to himself, whilst Zoe looks positively petrified.

"Oh no…" she gasps quietly to herself, "Most of mine aren't even native to Kanto!"

"Calm down, everyone…" The Day Care Man hushes them all, eventually managing to restore some form of serenity by waving his hands gently, "There is no need to panic. Transport to the mainland of Kanto will be arranged. However, you are all on your own after that. Any transport to other regions must be organised by you. Understand?"

The group more or less agrees to the old man's conditions, with the majority nodding, some glumly, dreading the potential horrors awaiting them on the mainland.

"That's most auspicious" he continues in a chipper fashion, stretching once again, "I will organise the transport for a week today. Perhaps the time between now and then would be best spent packing, and getting acquainted with your pokémon?"

"B-but what about our parents, and stuff?" Dylan asks nervously, in an attempt to hide the fact that he still hasn't told his parents about his test failure.

"Just tell them what I told you, Dylan" The Day Care Man answers with a wink, "And everything will be fine. I hope to see you all here in a week's time"

And with that notion, the Day Care Man taps his cane twice on the ground, turns around, and slowly toddles back into the Day Care behind him, leaving an overly confused group of students in his wake.

"W-what the hell…?" Sarah asks, stunned.

"I'm not sure" Anthony mumbles, having the initiative to withdraw his pokémon before they get unruly, and spurring others to do the same, "But I like the sound of it. It's like an adventure and an exam at the same time! It'd really take the pressure off!"

"Or would it ruin the 'holiday' effect, having to travel around and find these pokémon?" A dejected Dylan sighs, burying his head in his hands, "I hate this stupid exam already…"

It seems as though destiny is pushing him further and further away from his ideals, and forcing him to take the path that everyone else on his island seems all too keen to follow;

A pokémon training journey.

* * *

**Author's note:**

**Well, I hope you like this update!**

**Was rather a long time coming, but a rather lengthy one, I think, and now that I actually have some idea of what I'm gonna do with the storyline, it SHOULD be a positive indicator that more updates are on the way. As for frequency, I'm not too sure on that, but I'll try my best.**

**Oh, and thoughts on the title would be greatly appreciated. I rather like it, but I was wondering if you readers are the same way inclined?**

**Thanks for reading. Please R & R if you can spare a few minutes. :)**


	4. Borne To Be Wild

**Borne To Be Wild**

The last week has been a painful, disorienting blur for Dylan. He's been avoiding his parents as best he can, generally by just ignoring them completely and hoping that they didn't get too suspicious. On the rare time they do manage to get an answer out of him, he hides behind a witty, grandiose façade, and that's generally enough to quell their concerns. He just hopes his parents don't compare notes, as he has told them both a different story…

Aside from hiding the truth from said parents, his time has also been taken up with the laborious task of befriending his new 'acquaintances'. During his half-assed attempts at getting to know his six chosen pokémon, he's been tripped up by Diglett burrowing holes, constricted by a Dratini that's scared of everything, pushed over by an overzealous Phanpy bumping its trunk against him, defecated on by a Wingull that isn't housetrained, and he's lost count of how many times Voltorb's either shocked him, or exploded on him. His one solace is that Cleffa doesn't frustrate him too much; the thing basically never stops hugging his arm.

However, during the last seven days of chaos and anarchy, he has actually managed to glean some useful information about these six pokémon. In the dying hours before his transport to the mainland arrives, and he is plunged into a world of potentially endless unknown, he is soaking up the sights of his home for one last time, sat on a bench near the beach and also soaking up the sunlight as a secondary means of suppressing his lament, whilst combining this with a genuine effort to revise what he has learned about his six pokémon.

"Let's see…" he mumbles to himself, clumsily dragging his pen laden left hand down the page of his jotter, due to Cleffa still being attached to his right, and thus exacerbating his ability to write with it, "Cleffa likes hugs, playing catch, and Aspear berries. Cleffa _hates_ not being hugged, the colour green, and Cheri Berries"

"Cleff, cleff…" Cleffa squeaks, swinging from his right arm to and fro, enjoying itself immensely all the while.

Dylan rubs the painful friction burn across his right tricep, where Dratini had gotten spooked by a leaf that flew too near, and instantly wrapped itself around his arm for safety, albeit rather _tightly_.

"Dratini" he groans, knowing all too well that having more than one of these pokémon out at once is a bad idea, "Dratini is scared of _everything_" he recites from his jotter, "And can only be calmed by Cheri Berries. A lot of them. Especially prone to sudden noises, as it is very alert to sounds. Will swipe you with its tail if you offer it a dry poffin… OK Cleffa, that's enough playtime now!"

"Faaaw…" Cleffa complains, before Dylan extracts its poke ball and carefully returns the tiny creature, removing the deadweight from his arm at long last.

"Finally" he laughs with mirth, lifting his right arm up into the air to let the collected blood rush back down, "…Voltorb"

Deciding against letting the Voltorb out of its poke ball, he simply glances at his notes, and relays the information upon himself, "Voltorb will blow up for no apparent reason, without warning, and sometimes just to amuse itself. Likes Pecha Berries, although they have a tendency to make it blow up, because of the energy it's just consumed. Does _not_ like… Diglett"

A bright red flash of crimson light unveils Diglett to the world once again, who promptly burrows into the soft, shingly grass near the beach.

"Diglett enjoys burrowing holes" he states the obvious, "Seems to have an affinity for tripping people up with its tunnels" he rubs his sore shin, "And also a rather disturbing skill for creating geometric patterns…"

Even as he spoke, Diglett was happy tunnelling its way through the sand and the grass, creating a pattern that looked suspiciously like the Mona Lisa.

"Very artistic" he scrawls down more notes on his jotter now that he's regained the use of his right hand, "Diglett hates sun, hates rain, hates _wind_, hates basically anything that's outside of the ground, pretty much…"

He grabs a handful of random berries and throws them onto the likeness of the Mona Lisa, which has now acquired a moustache, and waits a few seconds for Diglett to react.

Then, as if all of the berries are resting on an aggressive patch of quicksand, they get sucked into the ground, one by one, evidently with Diglett chewing them all up in turn.

"Doesn't seem to have a preference for berr-" he starts, reading aloud, but is stopped by a violent gagging noise under the ground near his feet. Diglett reappears almost instantly, and proceeds to vomit up a violently blue, syrupy mixture onto Dylan's shoes!

Grimacing, Dylan sniffs the viscous goo on his chucks, and amends his notes with irritated scribbling, "Dislikes Chesto Berries…"

Diglett gets returned to its poke ball before it can make a sneaky escape, and is instead replaced by an already aerial Wingull, who promptly makes a tidy landing on top of Dylan's head.

"Grah, get off already!" he yells, flailing his arms wildly above his head to try and scare it away. Wingull would simply take off whilst Dylan flailed, and wait until he stopped, before simply landing again.

After about _twelve_ repeated attempts to get Wingull off of his head for good, he throws some Aspear Berries out for bait, which works temporarily, placating it with food for a minute or so. However, Dylan is forced to dive out of the way as the sadistic creature aims and fires its excretions at him upon its return, just barely missing.

"Alright, _fine_!" he grumbles, "You can sit on my head!"

Dylan reluctantly sits back on the bench, and Wingull chirps happily, floating down and perching in his hair once again. "Wing!" it cries shrilly.

"But if you crap in my hair, you're back in your poke ball, got it?" Dylan threatens the bird, pointing accusingly at it. After a few minutes of Wingull doing nothing, Dylan is finally convinced, and continues to review his notes.

"Wingull likes Aspear Berries" he mumbles, looking up at the itchy shuffling that was inhabiting his hair and groaning, "As well as making nests in really inconvenient places… like my goddamn HAIR!"

"Wingull!" the bird cries, startled by this spontaneous outburst from its 'host', and flaps its wings a couple of times to illustrate this, before calming down and roosting once again.

"Will try to crap on you. Often" Dylan scribbles onto his jotter, "If you try to feed it a Cheri Berry, if it has some other excuse, or is just plain bored…"

He decides to throw caution to the wind, and not harass Wingull further, actually leaving it out as he releases the last of the six pokémon from its capsule; Phanpy.

"Phaannn…pyy!" it cries happily, bounding out of the poke ball and swaying its little trunk from side to side, clearly elated to be out of its stuffy capsule. Dylan can't help but chuckle at the little blue pokémon, which is currently entertaining itself by spinning around in circles.

"Phanpy…" Dylan reads, looking at his notes once again, "Is very easily amused. Loves Aspear Berries, like Wingull. So they should theoretically get along…"

Hatching a plan in his mind, he reaches up, quick as a flash, and ensnares the unsuspecting Wingull in his hands!

"Hey, hey! Calm down!" he tries to instruct the struggling Wingull, which is thrashing desperately in an attempt to get away from this strange attacker.

"Wing!" it caws, pecking Dylan's finger painfully and causing him to cry out in pain, loosening his grip. This results in Wingull breaking free, and the little bird moves to fly away. But next thing it knows, it's staring down the locking mechanism of a poke ball, courtesy of what must have been a blindingly fast movement from Dylan.

"Behave, or be gone" He growls through his bleeding finger, "…got it?"

Wingull stares at the capsule for a few seconds, realises that the outside is a lot more fun than the uncomfortable insides of its poke ball, and sighs in defeat, "…wing"

"Good" Dylan grumbles, shaking his finger once again and instructing his Wingull, "See that Phanpy over there? Go make friends with it, OK?"

Wingull looks back at Dylan incredulously, as if its trainer was asking something nigh on impossible of it. But once again, the thought of having to go back into its poke ball defeats it, and it reluctantly flaps over towards Phanpy, who is busy poking at a Tinymushroom on the ground.

"Wing…gull?" It crows to Phanpy, as some sort of greeting, whilst Dylan lets out a tortured sigh in the background.

"They like the same food…" he groans, throwing his top half over the back of the bench and looking up at the cloudy sky above, where the sun is slowly surrendering to the solemn solitude of setting, "So they_ should_ get along… right?"

But as luck would have it, Dylan wasn't so right. At least not in the way he'd planned.

"Wing?!" Wingull cries, zooming back over towards Dylan and planting itself on his face, clearly panicked.

"Ungf! What the?!" Dylan gasps, attempting to shake Wingull off, but his troubles only get worse, when;

"Phaaaaaaaaaaaaan!" Phanpy yells, charging into the bench and knocking it clean over, Dylan with it!

"Gull!" Wingull caws, once again soaring for safety whilst the bench and Dylan crash to the ground in a crumpled heap.

"Son of a…" Dylan groans, unable to move thanks to his arms being pinned under the bench, "Well don't just sit there. Help me outta this"

"Phaan!" Phanpy trumps, knocking the bench back over with relative ease, then 'helping' Dylan to his feet with more trunk bumping.

"Agh! Oww…" he grunts, pain thundering through his body. With a sprained ankle and what he suspects is a cracked rib, he limps over to the nearest thing he can sit on – the stone wall behind him – and collapses onto it, negotiating two poke balls into his hand from his jeans pocket whilst massaging his tender chest with the other hand.

"They get on like a house on fire…" he gasps sarcastically, aiming for an aerial Wingull with the first of the capsules, "Back ya go, Wingull…"

Wingull disappears in a glow of crimson, whilst Phanpy looks around bemusedly for its new 'playmate' that has just disappeared. It liked Wingull a lot more than Wingull liked it, unfortunately…

"Your turn too, Phanpy" Dylan grunts in pain, manipulating the second poke ball into a position where he can better operate it. He's just about to push the little button, when:

"Dylan…? W-what happened to you?"

He forces his aching neck joints to turn left, and spots the timid Zoe, waving at him shyly from a little further down the beach. Her pleated, soft yellow dress is billowing gently in the crescendo of wind blowing inland, and she holds the baby blue Panama hat onto her head with her other hand. Her four pokémon are strolling along the beach with her; Poliwag is having fun splashing about in the shallows, whilst Pachirisu is collecting seashells, Minccino is skipping alongside its trainer, and Audino is meandering behind a little, once again enthralled by distant music, and thus feeling the need to dance to it.

"Ohh, h-hey Zoe" Dylan gasps, holding his bruised ribs, "n-nothing much. My Phanpy just… pushed me over… y'know?" he attempts to shrug off an explanation, as if this were perfectly normal. But the shrugging causes another twinge of pain to melt through his system, resulting in a subsequent flinch.

"Ooh, looks painful…" Zoe winces, daring to approach him, "Was your Phanpy… mad?"

"Hell if I know" Dylan grumbles, looking towards Phanpy with disdain, who stares back with innocent overenthusiasm "But it sure seems to like pushing me over"

"Heehee, sounds like a mischievous little one…" Zoe manages to giggle, placing a hand on Dylan's shoulder, her face slowly marring with concern, "you're bleeding…"

"Hunh?" Dylan grunts, peering over to where her hand is, only to notice the gentle trickle of blood journeying its way down his arm "Oh. Yeah. Thanks"

"Y-you didn't notice?" Zoe asks, evidently worried.

"All of me hurts right now…" Dylan grimaces, his contorted face almost looking angry, "So I guess I didn't feel it over everything else… heh"

"Ohh… that's unfortunate" Zoe sympathises, but to no result, "H-hey, mind if I talk to your Phanpy?"

"Go for it…" Dylan murmurs, waving his hand dismissively before pivoting it between his head and his knee, "Be careful. It's strong" he feels the need to warn Zoe, for he fears that the powerful Phanpy could break the seemingly fragile Zoe in half after what it did to him…

"Hello, sweetie…" she coos, carefully kneeling down to greet the overexcited Phanpy, with her Minccino toddling up behind her, "What's your name?"

"Phan!" Phanpy cries, swinging its trunk to and fro, "Phanpy Phan!"

Phanpy waddles up to the demure damsel, its bright eyes shining with an inherent curiosity. Dylan stares, amazed, as the little Phanpy rests its trunk on her knee, and just sits there.

"H-how'd you do that?!" he splutters.

"Ohh, you've just… got to know what makes them tick… I think?" Zoe mumbles, patting Phanpy atop its head. Phanpy blows some air through its trunk as a sign of appreciation, creating the expecting trumpeting noise, and the expulsion of air blows back Minccino's fur, who becomes immensely entertained by this strange experience. It tiptoes forwards towards Phanpy, mumbles something intelligible to it, and next thing Zoe and Dylan know, Phanpy is playfully chasing after Minccino, using Zoe herself as a makeshift 'obstable' to run around.

"Would you look at that…" Dylan murmurs, stunned, "They're playing happily together!"

"L-looks like your Phanpy just wanted someone to play tag with, eheh…" Zoe laughs diffidently, staggering to her feet amidst the circle of madness, "S-so, Dylan… who drew the Mona Lisa? It's really good…"

"Hunh? Ohh…" Dylan stumbles, straining to remember past events, "That was Diglett. It loves to make pictures. Pretty cool, huh?"

"Yeah, it is…" she agrees, holding down the hem of her dress so that the violent updraft being created by the two pokémon – who were still circling her – wouldn't potentially cause her any embarrassment, "U-um… M-Minccino? Could you stop now, please? I-I need to get out…"

But Minccino's ears, although powerful, are currently tuned into the whooshing noise of wind rushing through them as it evades the pursuant Phanpy, and thus can't hear its owner's gentle pleads.

"O-oh dear, she can't hear me…" Zoe mumbles, at a loss for what to do. But her dilemma is solved when Phanpy glows a bright red, and disappears into its poke ball, which Dylan now brandishes.

"Problem solved!" Dylan chuckles heartily, stowing the capsule away in his pocket again.

"Min-minch?" Minccino peeps to Zoe, curious as to where her new friend has gone.

"Thank you…" Zoe murmurs, kneeling down and hugging her Minccino, "S-so…" she attempts to converse, "A-are you ready to go? The ferry's going to be here soon…"

"Soon?" Dylan asks, edging off of the wall carefully, due to his sprained ankle, "How soon?"

He realises that he could've easily lost track of time sat out here at the beach all day. His healthy foot brushes the ground, followed by his other, and he grimaces in pain as it shoots up his leg like a hot knife through butter.

"Ohh, about half an hour away, I think?" Zoe answers diligently, checking her wristwatch, "A-are you OK? You look like you're in pain…"

"Yes. I'm in pain" Dylan chuckles bluntly through gritted teeth, not wanting to upset the poor girl, despite her stating of the obvious, "I-I'll be fine, don't worry abOUT me!"

Once again overestimating himself, Dylan attempts to take a step forward on his damaged foot as he speaks, only to have it crumple beneath his weight and send needles of pain spiralling through his system.

"…ow" he grumbles, forcing himself back upright with his one good leg, his face still twisted with pain.

"But someone has to worry about you, Dylan" Zoe chuckles meekly, "And I'm here, so… I guess I'll do?"

Dylan looks up at Zoe, simply smiling at him. Even though the sun is currently hiding itself behind a mass of rapidly darkening clouds, the brightness and innocence of this girl's beaming would've easily put it to shame. His 'reputation' was common knowledge to the girls across the island, thanks to Nyssa, yet here is Zoe, offering him assistance as if she cared not.

"Wh-why're you helping me?" Dylan grunts, lowering his damaged foot to the ground as gently as he can, yet still failing to avoid obscene amounts of pain shooting up it, "All the other girls keep as far away as they can…"

"Where's the fun in being normal?" Zoe chuckles quietly, hooking her fragile body under Dylan's arm for support, "If being normal means I should exclude a guy because of his… c-choices" she stutters, choosing her words carefully, "Then I think I'd rather stay weird, thanks…"

"R-really…?" Dylan mumbles, plodding clumsily alongside the tiny stick figure that is Zoe, with her four pokémon wandering behind ambivalently, "I-I dunno what to say…"

"Just keep being yourself, Dylan" Zoe smiles, "Those others girls just don't see you like I do…"

"How… _do_ you see me?" Dylan asks, wondering how this relative stranger can see a side of him that even _he_ doesn't know exists.

"How I see it… life is like a puzzle, and we're all a piece of it" she explains cryptically, with the village centre edging slowly closer, "Now, you can try and change your piece, bend it or whatever so it might fit somewhere else, but that only makes more problems than it solves. Because now your piece doesn't fit very well, and you've got two of that piece, yet none of the original, see?"

"Uh huh…" Dylan mumbles, attempting to comprehend Zoe's clandestine statement, "So if I… change, to meet someone else's standards, I'll lose track of who I really am?"

"That's a good way of looking at it" Zoe giggles softly, somehow not folding under Dylan's far superior weight, "You're a really nice guy when you want to be, Dylan. Don't let those girls tell you otherwise. The way I see it, you were just… _testing_, to see how you fit"

"Eheh, sure, testing…" Dylan chuckles with mirth, his facing shining with a combination of clamminess and self-consciousness, "I thought I fit pretty well, actually"

"You must've gotten the wrong side of their 'piece'" Zoe explains gently, continuing with her metaphor, "You seemed to fit at first, but when you found the right side of them, you didn't fit nearly as well, huh?"

"Ohh, now I get it!" Dylan blurts out, not noticing that they were now amongst a small group of people huddled outside the ferry station, "Damn, that means that Nyssa chick must be like a corner piece or something, huh? Cause no matter _what_ I did, I was always on the wrong side of-"

But sudden realisation reduces his voice to a whimper, especially when Nyssa herself has taken a break from her shift at the poke mart to watch the departure.

"…idiot" she grumbles, wrinkling her nose in disdain, but remaining rooted to the spot. Confronting him is beneath her, and she still has seven minutes left of her break, which she doesn't want to waste. So stay she does.

"Umm… y-yeah. L-like that" Zoe mumbles bashfully, blushing a faint pink and detaching herself from Dylan so that he can stand on his own power, "Glad y-you understand…"

"My my, you two" the Day Care Man chuckles, standing shakily up from his strategically placed deckchair, "That was quite the entrance. Are you all set?"

"Uhh… yeah, pretty much…" Dylan sweatdrops, scratching the back of his head nervously, "I just gotta get my stuff from my house, and I'm ready…"

"M-me too" Zoe concedes, returning her four pokémon to their poke balls, "Ohh, gotta put my pokémon in the PC as well!"

"You're not… taking them with you?" Anthony Turner asks, stunned, "You seem so attached to yours already…"

"Ohh, I know…" Zoe trembles, still unsure of her decision, "I do like them very much. But I'm disadvantaged enough as it is, only having to find four… right, sir?"

"The choice is entirely up to you, Zoe" The Day Care Man enthuses, "But I can assure you that any potential advantages will be compensated for in the results. Do what you feel is right"

"Ohh, that's a relief!" Sarah Henderson gasps, wiping her brow, "I was sure that you were gonna mark me down, because all of my pokémon are so, well… simple"

"I would advise you all to _work together _on this, children" The Day Care Man states very matter-of-factly, "It is not a competition of any sort, so it shouldn't be treated as such. Feel free to help one another, because when it boils down, you are all in the same boat"

And then, just as he's speaking, as if like clockwork, the foghorn of a ferry can be heard in the distance, looming slowly closer through the now heavy mist, bringing an almost ominous sense of inevitability with it.

"Hoho, perfect timing!" The Day Care Man chuckles, "looks like your transport is here, children. Any last minute preparations should be taken care of now"

The old, creaky boats chugs gently closer to the mainland, at an almost intolerably slow pace, as if it's taunting the people on land. Predictably, the handful of students escalate into a mad rush, trying to get everything done in time. The Day Care Man smiles, and shakes his head fondly at their complete lack of organisation, and onlookers just see the entire situation as comical. Fisherman Joe even relaxes his fishing pole to get a better look.

"Ah, crap!" Dylan panics, watching Zoe run off to the poke centre, poke balls in hand "I've gotta put all my pokemon in the damn PC, and grab my crap from the house, all with a buggered foot! And I just _know_ that the PC's gonna take fifty years to load!"

Dylan's just about to drag himself off home to grab his things when:

"Sorry we're late, honey!"

He's stopped cold by this voice, which sends chills down his spine. Peering cautiously over his shoulder, he rolls his eyes in frustration when he finds the voice's owner.

"Oh, great…" he sighs to himself, "Hey Mum. Dad"

Dylan's mother has the same blonde hair as her son, and the same nonchalant expression that he displays so proficiently, whilst his bluish eyes and need to wear glasses come from his father, who sports a bulkier build than his son, and his hair colour is a light shade of brown instead.

"We came to see you off, sweetie!" Dylan's mother coos, "We even brought your things to help!"

Dylan's father steps to the side, revealing his packed rucksack and camping gear. Although he's never put up a tent in his life, his mother decided that it was a safe idea to buy him some camping supplies, due to it being 'a big, bad world out there'

"Yeah, we saw that nice girl helping you down the road, and noticed that you wouldn't make it in time if you had to come back for your things, dear!" His mother cries, removing a handkerchief from somewhere and cleaning her son's face with it, "Oh, you're all dirty already… how on Earth do you manage it?"

"Ohh, c-c'mon Mum!" Dylan whines, exacerbated, "I got pushed over by a Phanpy, OK?!"

"Sounds like someone needs to train their Phanpy a little better!" his father teases, ruffling Dylan's untidy hair. Dylan opens his mouth to retort sarcastically, but then a thought strikes him upon the mention of his pokémon. With a swift movement, he retrieves his six poke balls, and forces them into his mother's hands, with the dual purpose of stopping her from further humiliating him in public, and getting rid of them quickly, "Drop these in the PC for me?"

"Oh, umm… sure thing, honey?" His mother hesitates, unsure if she can even pull of the dubious task of working the sole computer on the island.

"Ask Casey if you need help, heh" Dylan reassures her, swinging his rucksack across his shoulders and almost falling backwards from the weight "She sure knows her stuff!"

"That'll make things easier!" his mother chimes, "Oh, and if you see your sister on your travels, let her know that her Mummy and Daddy love her, OK?"

"Uhh… not so sure she'd appreciate that, mum…" Dylan gasps, sweatdropping once again from a combination of nerves and the increased weight he's currently shouldering, "But if I do see Ab, I'll say hi… I guess"

The little ferry finally makes it to the dock, slowly reversing in so that the passengers can climb aboard.

"That's it, sweetie!" his mother enthuses, encouragingly pointing him in the direction of the ominous looking ferry, "Now you go do a wonderful job of rearing wild Tauros!"

"Uhh… yeah" Dylan smiles, hiding his obvious lie behind the cheesy grin. He backs away towards the ferry slowly, trying not to falter. But all hope is lost when his father comments:

"Rearing Tauros? He told me that he'd be teaching pokémon breeding at a girl's school in Celadon City!"

"Oh, he _did, _did he?"

"Well, he never said _pokémon_ breeding…"

"…"

"Dylan Cameron, explain yourself right now!"

"Uhh, sorry mum, I gotta go!" Dylan laughs nervously, stating that the surly ferryman was clearly not in a waiting mood. Zoe catches up with him, having deposited her four poke balls in the PC, and the pair board the ferry just in time for it to take off once again.

"You better have a good explanation for this, child!" Dylan's mother rages across the water, almost inaudible over the chugging of the little boat, and completely inaudible when the ferryman sounds the foghorn with a loud blare.

Dylan watches his parents bickering with utmost satisfaction as the ferry slowly pulls away from them, and dumps his bag and camping gear on the floor, for there was no need to carry them any further.

"W-what was all that about, Dylan?" Zoe trembles, confused.

"Ohh, I sorta lied to them about where I was going" Dylan chuckles nervously. Resting against the wall of the ferry, he concedes, "Problem is, now I've gotta do great on this test. If not, I'm-"

*FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARP *

And a conveniently timed blare of the foghorn signals the start of Dylan's trip into the wild unknown that lies beyond his little home of Four Island…

**Author's note:**

**Well… here's an update for you all. Not the most exciting of updates, I will admit, but it has some more insight into Dylan's character, plus the personalities of the six pokémon. **

**I've inadvertently turned Zoe into a more important character than I'd originally planned, but ehh. You guys let me know what you think of her?**

**Again, apologies for an unexciting chapter. Hope the humour in it makes up for the blandness. :D**

**Oh, and Moonlight fans should check my profile. :3**


	5. Attention Seaking

**Attention Seaking**

The little ferry, _The Salty Seaking_, chugs gently away from Four Island, its passengers dubious and few in number. Choppy coastal waves lick at her hull to try and hold her up, but she stubbornly pushes through the adversity, as if reaching her destination has become her sole mission.

"I would advise going inside, kids" a gruff voice calls through the ferry's intercom, "Unless you _enjoy_ being rained on, that is…"

Even as he speaks, small droplets of rain begin to fall from the sky, showering themselves over the handful of passengers and sparking outrage.

"You don't gotta tell me twice!" Dylan yells, wondering why he was still outside in the first place, and grabbing his things before ignoring the throbbing pain in his leg and charging through the door, into the ferry's interior. He is closely followed by Sarah Henderson, and then Anthony Turner, who holds the door open for the remainder of the students, with Zoe taking up the rear, casually sidling through after everyone else.

"Don't know what you are all so worked up about…" She chimes, wringing her wet hair onto the carpeted floor, "It's only a little bit of rain"

"Precisely. It's wet and horrible" Dylan remarks angrily, fighting to keep his balance with his one good leg as the boat struggles against the waves, and then grimacing as his bag gets knocked over, subsequently spilling open and scattering its contents everywhere, "Oh man... _seriously?_"

"That's what these little hooks are for, Dylan" Anthony advises him, gesturing to the rows upon rows of hooks adorning the walls, that other trainers are already making use of. But he looks around, and realises.

"Now what?"

Anthony's proclamation grabs the attention of his fellow passengers, who also look around the room and notice that there's _nothing_ in it. Aside from about a dozen old chairs, which are bolstered to the floor around a pair of circular wooden tables, it's completely barren. Even the walls are bare, with only the peeling paint and the bored looking Spinarak in the corner to indicate that there's _ever_ been life on this boat. And then, to make things worse:

"This is your captain speaking" the intercom grumbles unenthusiastically, "Estimated arrival time at Vermilion City is Seven, I repeat, _Seven_ PM. Until then, please find something to do, and don't bother me"

The static on the intercom cuts out, leaving the dozen or so students staring at it, open mouthed.

"Seven?!" Sarah gasps, looking at her wristwatch, "That's a whole _five_ hours away!"

"What're we supposed to do 'til then?" Dylan complains, resisting the urge to kick something, due to his bad foot, "Just stand here and watch the paint peel?!"

Some of the other students aren't as agitated as Dylan, having had the forethought to bring an item of leisure, including a book of crossword puzzles, a handheld games console, or a laptop, and one male simply resorts to plugging his iPod into his ears and throwing himself into one of the chairs, moshing to something with a fast tempo.

"How come they all thought of something to do?" Dylan whines, voicing his annoyance to anyone else who'll listen.

"I… thought there'd be something to do" Sarah concedes, dragging her foot across the floor sheepishly, "So I didn't bring anything. Minimalism, I guess?"

"I brought my phone, just in case…" Anthony admits, retrieving said phone from his jeans pocket for proof "But I fell asleep last night with the music player on… and it drained the battery"

He and Sarah both sigh in dejected unison, and all three of them notice Zoe, who's currently bouncing about happily.

"S-something wrong, Zoe…?" Dylan asks slowly, wondering what exactly is making her so jubilant.

"I've…" she hesitates, her blue-grey eyes lighting up, "I've got a board game?"

She stumbles over towards her bag, with the strap neatly looped around two hooks for easy access, and wades into it, extracting a battered, overused box.

"…monopoly?" Anthony chuckles, with a combination of surprise and nostalgia, "Wow, I haven't seen that in forever"

"I-it's silly, I know…" Zoe concedes, "But I-I've got all the pieces, and it's magnetic, so they won't go flying when the ship moves, and we're all bored, so… it's more of a _bored _game than a board game? Eheh…"

The three remaining students left with nothing to do exchange uneasy looks at each other, not knowing whether they should surrender to their boredom and indulge her, or stubbornly refuse for the sake of being stubborn.

"Well…" Sarah finally owes up, "If you're sharing your game… I've got some chips?"

She walks over to her rucksack in the corner, her brown shoulder length curls bobbing up and down as she does so, and wades into it, extracting a big bag of potato chips, "Barbeque flavour OK?"

"If we're all gonna share stuff…" Anthony remarks, also digging into his bag, "I've got soda?"

A two litre bottle of coca cola is lifted from the bag, followed by another of lemonade.

"Hopefully the boat won't throw them around too much" he chuckles, sweeping his dark fringe from his eyes with his arm and placing both bottles on the table, "So uhh… wanna get started?"

"Heehee, _yay!_" Zoe giggles, almost throwing the box onto the table, yet still maintaining a careful ambience as the lid is lifted, and she begins to set the pieces up in their rightful places.

"Hang on, hang on just a sec…" Sarah interrupts, staring at Dylan accusingly with her hazel eyes flashing, "Dylan hasn't got anything to contribute to the game!"

"Aww c'mon Sarah, it's monopoly, not a poker game…" Anthony sighs, "Aren't you being a little extreme?"

"No no, it's OK, I'll get something!" Dylan consoles Sarah, staggering over to his bag and hoping that there's something in it he can use, "C'mon, c'mon…"

All manner of things fly from the bag as Dylan hurriedly rummages through it, including a wok, several mushrooms, and an embarrassing looking plushie, which is promptly caught by Anthony, and quickly induces a snigger.

"An… Absol plushie?" he snorts, examining the 1/16 model with whimsical surprise, "Didn't think you were the type, Dyl-"

"Don't touch Athena!" Dylan gasps in response, extricating himself from the depths of his bag and snatching the toy from him, "She's dangerous!"

"Pff, how?" Anthony scoffs, trying to reach out and grab it from him again, "I know _actual_ Absol are dangerous as hell, but this is-"

"NOT just a toy!" Dylan counters, twisting and removing the head of the Absol, "She _also_ doubles as a penknife!"

The removal of the plush Absol's head reveals a sharp, jagged knife, perfect for gutting Magikarp or freeing a trapped pokémon from a net.

"You can also open bottles with her tail, heh…" Dylan chuckles, carefully stowing Athena the Absol away again, and returning to wading through his bag, "Shame those bottles you got were twisties, really. Otherwise I'd have some- hey, I got something!"

Almost leaving his feet from how deep into the bag he's reaching, he eventually manages to extract from it; a bowl.

"Something to put the chips in!" he laughs bashfully, holding it up and wiping his brow with his free arm, "Oh, and I've got some cups in here somewhere too!"

Another diving expedition into the bag retrieves four plastic cups, which are dropped into the bowl, and clumsily carried over to the table. "I think we're gonna have to hold them though…"

"Well, we've got two hands?" Zoe suggests, having set up the board game's pieces at last, "So… who's gonna be what piece?"

She holds up the metal pieces in her hands, for the others to choose from.

"I call the bike!" Anthony shouts loudly, before anyone else can react, and grabbing the respective piece, then sitting down in a chair with a smug look plastered across his sallow complexion.

"Hunh?! What the?!" Dylan gasps, stunned at just how quickly Anthony sprang into action, "…wow. Someone's keen"

After a moment of exchanging awkward glances with his three soon to be competitors, he takes the chivalrous route, and says "Y-you take the next pick, Sarah. Bike's already gone…"

"O-oh, really?" Sarah replies, taken aback, "Thanks, Dylan! I'll umm… I'll take the poke flute?"

"You next, Dylan" Zoe insists, as Sarah sits down adjacent to Anthony, emptying her big bag of chips into the bowl and forgetting that the cups were in there, "…oops. Hope you guys don't mind the cups being a little salty!"

She blushes, and plucks the cups from the chips before Dylan picks his piece, "I'll take… the Running Shoes. Heh, irony…"

"What irony?" Zoe asks innocently, choosing the Poke doll for her piece, and depositing the rest in their respective tray.

"Well, they're Running Shoes…" Dylan smirks at her blissfully unaware state and sitting down opposite Anthony. Zoe sits down opposite Sarah, her face devolving into an even more bemused expression, and Dylan can't help but laugh.

"Cause I, like, never exercise?" he chuckles, watching Zoe's bemusement slowly solidify into acknowledgement, and she giggles airily once she's finally realised, "Ohh, I get it now! Funny!"

"Yeah, I've actually been meaning to ask you about that…" Sarah muses, as they all roll a die to see who goes first, "You do _nothing_, by your own admission, yet you're still a beanpole! How the hell do you – oh, dammit, A two…"

"Heh, just a strong metabolism, I guess?" Dylan chuckles good naturedly, receiving the die from Sarah, "I keep my diet nice and balanced, and – yesss, a five!"

"Ooh, good one Dylan!" Zoe smiles at him, rolling her die and getting, "Aww, a one…"

"Guess it's up to me, heh…" Anthony challenges, scooping up the die and swilling it around in his hand for dramatic effect, "Would be nice to get the mental advantage…"

"Go on, make my day!" Dylan taunts, eyeing him pointedly. Anthony returns the stare with equal tenacity, letting the dice slide from his hand to roll… another five.

"Oh, it's on now!" Anthony yells, spurred by the competition that was already building between them.

"Men…" Sarah sighs, grabbing the first of the bottles. It had been ingeniously pinned down with the use of a convenient groove in the table leg, an exposed nail and a hairband, to stop it getting shaken up. Unscrewing the lid and avoiding the madly escaping foam, she asks, "Lemonade anyone?" and carefully pours some into a cup.

"I'll take some, please!" Zoe chimes, offering Dylan a second die, "Tiebreaker! Now you both roll at the same time!"

"I want that one, it's green!" Dylan objects, instead grabbing the die on the table, and almost spilling the cup of lemonade that Sarah was passing over to Zoe in the meantime, "…oops. Sorry!"

"Umm… OK?" Zoe mumbles, as both Anthony and Sarah roll their eyes in exasperation at Dylan, "Looks like you get the blue die then, Anthony!"

"Thanks, Zoe" Anthony remarks emotionlessly, receiving the die from her and once again locking eyesight with the young man opposite him, "Ready for this, Dylan?"

"Oh, you betcha" Dylan counters, refusing to give him even an inch. Both of them release their dice simultaneously, which roll across the board, and Dylan's number is revealed first.

"…four" he grumbles, less than satisfied at his mediocre roll.

"Heh, I can beat that!" Anthony sneers, suddenly full of confidence, "C'mon, gimme a… dammit"

His die comes to a stop, also revealing a four.

"Twice in a row?" Dylan exclaims, flummoxed, "ANOTHER!"

This process repeats itself another _three_ times, with both young men rolling identical rolls each time.

"Aww, c'mon!" Dylan grunts in disdain, pushing his glasses back up his nose, "These're just impossible odds!"

"You could always forfeit" Anthony suggests snidely, scooping up his die once again, "Second isn't so bad, y'know…"

"I know it isn't" Dylan counters, "Let me know what it's like when you're _there_, huh?!"

"Wow, you guys are getting competitive…" Zoe mumbles, almost embarrassed at the passion on display.

"Maybe you could try a different method…" Sarah groans, already bored, "Like, Rock Paper Scissors or something?"

Both males stop what they're doing, and look back at Sarah, their faces nothing short of mortified.

"Are you mad, woman?" Anthony gasps, stunned.

"Alright, fine…" Sarah concedes, grabbing a handful of chips and resigning herself to more boredom, "Continue with your petty argument"

"Good" both males recite in near unison, before Anthony's grey eyes meet up with Dylan's blue-green once again.

"Let's finish this" Dylan suggests, barely daring to breathe.

"Good idea" Anthony agrees, and both roll their dice once again…

The tension in the air can almost be felt as the two young men watch their dice crash across the table. Anthony's comes to a stop first, revealing a reasonable four, but Dylan's sideswipes Zoe's cup of lemonade, somehow elevating into a spin on one axis, and then getting thrown off of the table completely by a sudden swerving of the ship!

"Hah, it left the table! That's a disqualification!" Anthony roars, exultant, as Zoe just manages to save her lemonade from being spilt.

"Hey, no fair, that was the boat's fault!" Dylan rages, "I say, whatever it's landed on, it's still in play!"

"Oh, so we should bend the rules just for you?" Anthony attacks, pointing accusingly at Dylan.

"You'd be the same if it were your one!" Dylan retorts, forcing Anthony to retreat on the simple knowledge that what he said is true. Anthony curses inwardly, and Dylan appeals to the girls, "Isn't that right, Sarah? Zoe?"

"Seems fair to me?" Zoe agrees, shrugging lightly with her lemonade in her hand.

"Whatever…" Sarah groans, slouching over the back of her chair out of boredom.

"God dammit…" Anthony complains, peering down past Zoe to see, "What did it land on…?"

"I'll look too. Make sure you don't cheat!" Dylan insists, also venturing under Zoe's chair to inspect the fallen die.

"No way…"

"You gotta be kidding me!"

"What's the problem?" Zoe asks, looking down between her feet to find the die.

It had somehow, against all odds, gotten itself wedged in a notch on the floor, perfectly balanced between the three and the five. All three teenagers stare incredulously at it, wondering how this was even possible.

"Wow, talk about unlikely!" Zoe giggles, carefully lifting her feet away and tucking them under herself so that she doesn't disturb it. After all, she doesn't want to potentially ruin someone's chances of 'victory'…

"_Now_ what?" Anthony asks, just a little beyond frustrated.

"We let the boat decide, I guess?" Dylan suggests, with a shrug. Anthony curses at the suggestion, but reluctantly agrees, and no sooner has he done so that a wave lashes the Salty Seaking's hull, shunting the die from its peaceful state of equilibrium to unveil…

A five!

"YESSS!" Dylan shouts, ecstatic, "I won!"

"Lucky son of a-"

"The game hasn't even started yet, dumbasses…" Sarah deadpans, hauling herself back into a sitting position, "So how 'bout we _get_ started, huh?"

"With pleasure!" Dylan torments Anthony further, scooping his victorious die from the floor and pairing it with the blue one, "OK, first go!"

He rolls his dice, revealing a three and a four; seven in total.

"Seven… not a bad start" he mumbles, plodding his Running Shoes across the pieces one at a time to reach the indicated space, "Poke chest on the first go! Sweet!"

He picks up a card as the space on the board dictates, and reads it out loud, "_'You forgot to receive your pokédex from the professor! Go back three spaces'_. Dammit"

He backtracks three spaces to his new destination, "Aww man. _'Poke ball tax. Pay 1000 poke'_"

"Karma's a bitch, huh Dylan?" Anthony sniggers, watching him sigh and hand over a 1000 poke note to Zoe, who is acting as banker.

"Hah, doesn't matter!" Dylan recovers, "By the time this game's over, you're gonna be _my_ bitch, got it?"

Anthony shoots a venomous look at Dylan, and Zoe interjects before the scene can escalate any further, "OK guys… c-calm it down please?"

"…sorry" Anthony apologises meekly, "So, it's my turn next, right?"

"Umm…" Zoe cuts in once again, "We move clockwise from the person who goes first. So it's… my turn now. Sorry…"

"Why're you apologising, Zoe?" Sarah feels the need to ask, raising an eyebrow, "You're just following the rules…"

"I-I know…" Zoe answers politely, "But I just… feel bad, cause he thought it was, and it wasn't, and-"

"It's OK, Zoe" Anthony consoles her, "Perfectly fine. It's your turn now. Please take it"

In spite of the anger he's suppressing, Anthony bites his tongue, because he believes that the seemingly fragile Zoe doesn't deserve to be torn apart by his harsh words. Dylan, on the other hand…

Anthony's mind catches up with him, and he tunes back in to find out that Zoe has also rolled a seven.

"And my card says…" she recites, "Ooh yay! _'Your pokémon has won second prize in a Beauty contest. Please collect 100 poke!' _Awesome!"

She collects the indicated note from the bank, and slides it under the board with the rest of her money, and Anthony scoops up the dice, ready for his turn.

"C'mon, let's show them…" he mutters , already displeased with his dice rolls. However, luck strikes this time when he rolls a perfect twelve!

"Oh, sweet!" he cries, shuffling his bike along the board with gusto and ending up on: "Yes, Fuego Ironworks! I can buy it, right?"

"You have to go around the board once before you can buy anything, I'm afraid…" Zoe enforces gently, "So you might as well roll again, Anthony, cause you got a double?"

"Oh right, I did, didn't I?" Anthony 'remembers', grabbing the dice once again and rolling _another_ double, this time an eight.

"Hah, and a free rest at the poke center! Man, this is a great roll!" he chortles, dragging his piece to the appropriate square, "Karma eh Dylan?"

"_Now_ who's being extreme?" Sarah mocks him, "Just finish your damn turn already!"

"You might wanna be careful though…" Zoe advises, "One more double, and you'll make Officer Jenny mad!"

"Naah, that won't happen!" Anthony enthuses, rolling his dice again, "I mean, what're the… oh, crap"

Anthony doesn't roll a double, but instead rolls a four and a six, equalling ten and yielding the same result; jail.

"Don't pass Oak, don't collect 2000 poke" Dylan laughs, "And you're back at the Day Care! Looks like karma really is a bitch, huh Ant?"

"Damn you…" he growls, plonking his bike on the Day Care square, "That's just typical. I gotta hatch an egg before I can leave, and it's a _board game!_ Oh, the irony!"

"Well, you've rolled plenty of doubles so far, so it should hatch in no time at all" Sarah laughs humourlessly, picking up the dice and rolling her turn, "Course, you can just bribe the old man with 500 poke to take your egg away, heh…"

Sarah moves her poke flute five squares, landing on "Oh, the S.S. Anne? Shame I can't buy her yet…"

* * *

And over the course of the next couple of hours, the game predictably degenerates into mindless competitive yelling, spurred between the two remaining members; Dylan and Anthony. Both Zoe and Sarah had been eliminated a short while ago, but sheer stubbornness has kept the young men from surrendering, and now tension's at an all-time high.

"C'mon, you can do it guys!" Zoe cheers them on, amazingly enthusiastic considering that both young men would have been blinded by now, were idioms anything more than mere figures of speech.

"Yeah, finish it already…" Sarah grumbles, draining the last of the lemonade, "Can't you call it a tie or something so we can start afresh?"

"Never!" Both males shout in unison, before continuing to shoot visual daggers at each other.

"Or at least pass the chips…" Sarah sighs, pointing to the bowl that's out of her reach.

"Just wait a second" Anthony instructs, rolling his dice and smirking as a rocking from the boat sends the bowl of chips gently sliding towards her position, "There ya go, two Wingull with one Geodude. Suck on that, Dylan. I missed all of your properties. Again!"

His piece lands on a piece owned by him – Lavaridge Cable Cars – which is directly between Vermilion Avenue and Olivine Crescent, both of which are owned by Dylan, as well as the rest of that side of the board.

"Big deal" Dylan counters, "You're just jealous that I won't give you Mistralton Airport!"

"Only cause you won't make a fair trade for it!"

"Hah, that's the point"

"Guys, calm it down, for Arceus' sake!" Sarah cries with frustration, "Or I'm gonna start breakin' faces!"

"Hey, nothing wrong with some healthy competition!" Dylan objects, "Maybe you should calm down instead!"

"Women" Anthony mutters darkly, where he notices Dylan nod in agreement, "They just don't understand these things"

"B-but you are being a _little_ over the top, guys…" Zoe squeaks, innocently oblivious to Anthony's biting chauvinism, "Be nice… please?"

"Aww, but these are only words, Zoe…" Dylan pleads

"Yeah, we don't actually mean any of this stuff!" Anthony objects, "It's just the game talk. Y'know, it's an alpha male guy thing"

"Fine. Whatever" Sarah complains, clearly not in the mood, "Just bring the volume down. Or I'll bring my foot down somewhere you won't like, and it'll hurt. Got it?"

"…got it" both males agree, actually scared by Sarah's very real threat. Dylan takes a sip of his cola, which is also dwindling in supply, and rolls his dice, "Eleven, huh? That puts me on… dammit. Robbed by Team Rocket again…"

"Hah! That'll teach ya!" Anthony sneers, watching with glee as Dylan hands another 1000 poke over to Zoe the banker.

"Pff, better than staying at your lousy Castelia Street hotel" Dylan counters, "20000 poke that place cost me last time, and I didn't even get room service! …heh"

"Haha, you're funny Dylan…" Zoe giggles cutely, finding the fact that he wanted room service from an imaginary hotel nothing short of hilarious.

"Well if you asked, instead of trying to _take_ the chips, maybe you would've gotten somewhere!" Anthony retorts, grabbing a handful of chips from the bowl to illustrate, "Now, to survive this minefield…"

"Good luck with that" Dylan taunts, eyeing the spaces ahead of Anthony's piece, of which he owns nine of the twelve available spots. Of the three remaining spots, a roll of five will send Anthony to the Day Care, for a fourth time, whilst rolls of eleven and twelve will take him to a poke chest or Lilycove Avenue, both of which are safe havens for him. However, odds of that are slim…

The dice leave the safety of Anthony's grip, gently crashing across the table, stumbling over it like a Spoink on a bouncy castle to eventually reveal…

"No!" Anthony gasps, his voice punctured with the sheer look of horror that has practically melted his face, "NOT A NINE?!"

But alas, try as he might to deny it, the four and five stare back at him innocently, once again reinstalling the fact that those very numbers have been taunting him from the very beginning of the game…

"Yup. Definitely a nine" Zoe unintentionally adds insult to injury, peering over to assess the numbers.

"Might as well just finish it now, Ant" Sarah advises him, "Don't let it drag out any longer than it needs to? Please?"

"…alright" Anthony concedes, "But your hotel at Saffron Summit _better_ have Satellite TV, got it Dylan?"

"Heh, sure thing. Just make sure you pay for the night. All 14000 poke of it" Dylan exults, watching Anthony reticently drag his piece over to its final destination; for he doesn't quite have the funds to cover his hotel bill.

Square by square the little bicycle wheels further, completely oblivious of the fatal fate that awaits it. But upon exiting Goldenrod Heights, it lurches to an unexpected stop, as the giant hand controlling its movement is suddenly lifted away…

"Hunh? What was that?"

"Quit stalling and lose already" Dylan complains, frustrated at Anthony's refusal to simply hand him the victory.

"No, seriously" Anthony counters, raising a hand to try and quiet down his fellow passengers, "I thought I heard a… strange noise?"

The entire room slowly calms down to a revered silence, only punctuated by the occasional sniffing of the girl on her laptop; her sinuses are playing up.

* * *

"…I can't hear anything" Dylan eventually grumbles after a long while, "Sorry Ant, but you're losing it. Now hurry up and lose the game so we can-"

*CRASH!*

All manner of panicked screaming can be heard as something almighty smashes into the ship, almost knocking it sideways!

"What the?!" Dylan gasps, struggling to remain in his seat, "The hell was that?!"

But hysterics climb to even greater heights when the lights go out, enveloping the small group of teenagers in semi darkness!

"This… is your captain speaking" The intercom grumbles in an ominously stoic voice, "We may be facing some weather based difficulties soon,-"

"No shit Sherlock…" Sarah moans sarcastically in the dark, reaching for the bowl of chips as if the situation didn't bother her in the slightest.

"-so please hold onto something, and for Arceus' sake, don't sue"

The static cuts out once again, and a bizarre sense of De Ja Vu washes over the scene, as the small group of teenagers are once again left staring at the speaker, disgusted.

"So an incompetent captain herds us all onto this death trap of a 'ferry', with the knowledge that it doesn't have even _basic_ safety precautions, and expects us to be happy and accepting about it when shit hits the fan?" Anthony grumbles, folding his arms out of exasperation, "I hate this trip already…"

"Ohh, I'm sure it won't be that bad!" Zoe soothes, trying to inspire some confidence in the cynical Anthony, "Why, I just know we'll be alr-AHH!"

Another sudden lurching of the ship sends it careering sideways again, only with much more force this time, actually tipping it at a sharp enough angle to throw people off of their chair!

"ZOE!" Dylan gasps, diving forwards from his chair - with little regard for his own safety - to catch the poor girl, whilst Sarah on the other side and a few other passengers manage to cling onto their chairs for dear life!

Zoe and Dylan's hands just barely ensnare, leaving Dylan balancing off of his chair with just one injured leg hanging precariously from the chair itself, and Zoe fighting to avoid slipping any further downwards on the floor, which is tipped at a stomach churning fifty degrees!

"Just… let me go, Dylan!" Zoe pleads, concerned for his welfare above her own "I-I can slide down to the bottom!"

"No way am I letting you go!" Dylan grimaces, pain rocketing up his leg, "A drop like that'll break you!"

But their fears are soon realised as the boat tips further still, putting ever more strain on the passengers and their situation. Sarah loses her grip on the bars of the chair she was hanging onto for dear life, and slips down the floor with a heart twisting scream, but having the fortune to land on someone's bag, cushioning her fall just enough to prevent serious injury!

Things weren't boding so well for others, however.

"Oh no! No, no no no!" Anthony pleads desperately, fighting for all he's worth to avoid smashing into the central table leg where it'll hurt him most, but having little luck. The ship tips further and further with every passing second, and more students are falling from their seats, crashing down to the 'floor' below!

"S-stay with me!" Dylan grunts, somehow exhibiting a display of superhuman strength to drag the petrified Zoe a little further away from the seemingly inevitable drop.

"I'll... try!" Zoe squeaks, her face white as a sheet, and tears streaming from her eyes. This wasn't how she envisioned her last moments…

Dylan reaches out to Zoe with his other arm, and brings her closer still to him, but it comes at the ultimate cost:

"Dylan!" Anthony gasps, having managed to rest himself atop one of the chairs now that the ship was tipped at virtually _ninety_ degrees, "Y-your leg's slipping!"

"What?!" Dylan cries in response, glancing at his crumpled leg and realising that Anthony is indeed correct, "Ohh, crap…"

Anthony tries to reach out a weary hand and grab the leg, but his efforts are in vain, and the two are sent plunging into the depths below…

"I've… I've gotcha Zoe!" Dylan manages to shout as they fall, and she burrows her head into his chest, her tear stricken face set with resignation.

The ground looms quickly closer, and Dylan's last thoughts before colliding are '...This'll hurt'

***Thud!***

* * *

**Author's note:**

**Well, quite the cliffhanger of an ending, huh?!**

**Hope you guys liked this one. Mostly filler, I will admit, but it has a rather unexpected twist (well, I think so at least), delves a bit more into the four named characters, and adds to the theme of the story, i.e. things not boding well for Dylan and friends.**

**Speaking of those unnamed passengers on the ship…**

**Yeah. They're OCs. Want one?**

**I think I can manage about five. PM me if you're interested. :3**

**Did I go too far with the competitiveness during the Monopoly game? Feedback on this would be greatly appreciated. :D**


	6. Picking Up The Pieces

**Picking Up The Pieces**

"Nnggh…" a disoriented Zoe mumbles, forcing her pained eyes open and looking around blearily in the near darkness. Her expression erodes from bemused to horrified as she merely surveys the sheer level of destruction around her. The ship is now on its side, with belongings spewed everywhere across the wall of the ship, and a few of the passengers have just barely avoided fatal damage with the hooks on the walls. But on the bright side, at least the Spinarak looks amused now.

"Wh-what the?" she gulps, her voice muffled from the pain in her chest. Fearing she's cracked ribs, she strains to lift her head from the oddly soft ground she believes she's lying on, only to hear a voice.

"Zoe! You awake?!"

"Hunh?" Zoe questions, bemused at the voice that seemed to have come from above, "W-who's there?"

"It's me, Anthony" the voice's owner grunts, in considerable discomfort, having planked himself against a chair with no viable means of getting down to the 'ground'. But his situation is nothing in comparison to the others, and they are the targets for his concern; most are unconscious, and several are sporting what look like some serious wounds. Zoe herself has escaped rather unscathed in comparison…

"H-how are you, Zoe?" Anthony gasps, the chair leg pressing against his stomach, "Feeling…OK?"

"M-my head hurts…" Zoe murmurs, rubbing the bruised side of her head, "Hey, why am I so fine, and no one else? I remember falling and, and-"

"Look down, Zoe"

"Whuh?"

Now utterly confused, Zoe turns her sore face slowly to look down at the 'ground' beneath her, to find other than Dylan!

"OH! Oh my gosh?!" she cries, her memory suddenly spurring and panic beginning to set in, "He's hurt, and he saved me, and it's all my fault, and-"

"Zoe, calm down!" Anthony tries to instruct from above, "Dylan doesn't look so good. You gotta make sure he's OK, got it?"

"H-h-h-how do I do that?!" Zoe gasps, her voice high and squeaky from sheer terror.

"Check his heart's beating first" Anthony directs, managing to remain calm, "Feel the side of his neck and tell me if you can feel a heartbeat, OK?"

"O….OK!" Zoe squeaks, clambering _off_ of the unconscious Dylan so that she can better reach his neck. A few moments of worried contact across his neck, she eventually manages to feel the frail _buh-bump_ of a weak, but steady heartbeat.

"OK, I-I got something!" Zoe stammers, looking up to Anthony hopefully with her blood-stained hair draping over one eye, "Is that good?!"

"Only if he's breathing" Anthony explains, noticing other students begin to stir around them "I can't tell from here. Can you check?"

"Umm…" Zoe falters, at first unsure of what to do. But she soon remembers that breath is _wind_, and that she should be able to feel it. Another person, one almost as petite as Zoe, staggers to her feet in the background, and Zoe brushes her hand in front of Dylan's nose, trying to feel for breath…

"…oh no!" She cries, flailing her hand some more, as if hoping it would magically fix the problem, "H-he's not breathing, Anthony! I-I must've squeezed all the air out of him when I fell on him! It's all my-"

"Zoe!" Anthony orders, breaking through her hysteria, "You didn't do anything wrong, got it?!"

"Yes I did, I _hurt_ him!"

"He _saved_ you, Zoe!" Anthony counters, inspiring some sense in the girl, "Now it's your turn to save him, OK? You need to give him CPR to get him breathing again!"

"Um, I-I dunno if I can do that…" Zoe stammers, "C-could you do it instead?"

"You've gotta act _now_, Zoe!" Anthony cries, bordering on angered, "Otherwise you'll lose him! Tilt his head back, support his neck, pinch his nose, and breathe into him, got it?"

"That's it?" Zoe queries, oblivious to the disdained grumbles of the girl behind her, "L-like a kiss?!"

"Yeah. Like a kiss" Anthony deadpans, rolling his eyes and turning his attention to the other girl who was conscious, "Hey, you OK… kid?"

"I've been better…" the girl grunts, cradling a bloody arm. It had been pretty much ripped to shreds during her fall, due to her smashing a window with it, and scattering glass everywhere. The sleeve of her flannelette shirt has been practically torn to ribbons because of this, and the vicious looking cut down her leg doesn't appear too pleasant either, where the hook on the wall has torn straight through her denim jeans.

"What's your name again…?" Anthony mumbles, trying to remember her name, "Tammy…? Tori… Terry…sa? Tere!-"

"Tess"

"Hunh?"

"My name is Tess" the girl cuts his exultance short, "Call me otherwise, and you die"

"Riight…" Anthony murmurs, not sure if he should take this threat seriously, "Well, umm, _Tess... _Could you check on the others, see if they're OK? I kinda can't get down…"

"This'll help" the girl known as Tess grumbles, extracting a rope from the rubble, weaving it into an intricate loop and throwing the looped end towards Anthony. It catches on the chair leg, and holds, giving him a means of reaching the ground.

"W-wow" Anthony gasps, stunned. He clambers off of his safety chair, and clumsily down the rope, walking down the floor with it.

"Try not to tighten it too much" Tess advises, looking down to assess the still groggy Sarah "We might need it again"

"Good point" Anthony agrees, reaching level ground at long last and staggering over to the stone still Zoe, "What's wrong, Zoe? Why are you doing nothing?!"

"I-I…" she stammers, petrified, "I've never kissed someone before... so I'm nervous… w-what if I don't do it very well?!"

"Ohh man…" Anthony grimaces, pressing his palm to his forehead, "It's not _really_ like a kiss, Zoe… have I gotta do it?"

"B-but why'd you say it was?!" Zoe yelps, now beyond confused.

"I'll explain later, Zoe!" Anthony cries, frustrated, "But Dylan needs our help _now! _You doing this or what?"

"A-alright…" Zoe mumbles, following Anthony's previous instructions and pinching Dylan's nose, lifting his chin to tilt his head back, then breathing into his mouth, sending the vital Oxygen he needs into his lungs…

"Atta girl" Anthony praises Zoe, placing his hands atop Dylan's chest and applying pressure in rhythmic repetitions, "C'mon Dylan, don't do this to us. You owe me a goddamn rematch…"

Whilst he and Zoe fight to wake Dylan up, Tess is checking on the other passengers.

"Hey. You OK?" She deadpans, nudging Sarah with her shoe. Sarah grunts, indicating that she's at least conscious, so Tess moves onto the next passenger; a taller boy of roughly the same age as her, dressed in mostly black and blue; a blue sports jacket covering a black shirt, with blue jogging pants and blue and white running shoes.

"You OK?" Tess mutters to him, with the same lack of enthusiasm she had used when addressing Sarah, also nudging him with her bright red shoes.

"Back hurts" he groans, lowering his broken sunglasses so that he can see better, and tries to force himself to sit up, regardless of the serious bruising his back has sustained, "What the hell happened?"

"Boat fell over" Tess explains bluntly, and moves on to assess the next passenger; a dazed (but conscious) looking auburn-haired girl in a green dress. After confirming that Miranda Miller was OK, only suffering from some head trauma, she meets up with Kasey Finch, an obnoxiously tall young man wearing a teal t-shirt covered by a white sweater vest, and similarly beige shorts extending just past the knee.

"You OK?" Tess asks him unenthusiastically, offering her good hand to help him to his feet, "Your elbow looks… painful"

"M-many thanks, miss" Kasey's light, airy voice stammers from a combination of self-consciousness and gratitude, "But my elbow is but a scratch in comparison to injuries others have sustained. Like your arm, for example! Do you require assistance? I can help?"

"Help others" Tess grunts stubbornly, ignoring the searing pains in her arm "I'm fine"

"As you wish, miss" Kasey laughs for no apparent reason, bowing courteously in spite of her biting obstinacy, with a few strands of his rusty coloured hair migrating across his face as he does so.

"You there!" he gasps, noticing Zoe and Anthony's desperate attempts to revive the still unconscious Dylan as Tess moves to check on the last of the passengers; a slightly older girl named Avril with a damaged shoulder.

"May I offer assistance?" Kasey asks Anthony in an unduly manner, wading through the mess on the floor to meet up with him, "I'll have you know that I'm a brilliant helper, and any assistance you require will be unwaveringly dealt with in the most prof-"

"You, wanna, help?" Anthony asks, rudely interrupting the overly polite Kasey whilst rhythmically compressing Dylan's chest manually, "Then help clean up this crap on the floor, OK?"

"This… _crap_?" Kasey mumbles, confused at the use of such a vulgar word. But a conveniently timed break from Anthony allows him to point at the belongings that have been littered along the floor for a few seconds before returning his attention back to Dylan.

"My gosh you're right!" Kasey gasps, overreacting completely, "Very well, good sir! I will contribute to the cleaning, and allow you to continue your magnificent work!"

Kasey happily scurries off, invigorated at the thought of organising all the mess that's littered across the ship, whilst Anthony and Zoe continue to try and resuscitate Dylan.

"Dammit Dylan!" Anthony grunts, clearly frustrated, "I'll have you know that dying will count as forfeit, got it?!"

"Don't say that, Anthony…" Zoe mopes, before taking a breath and expelling it into Dylan's lungs once again, "I-I don't wanna think like that"

"Hey, if it works, don't complain!" Anthony retorts, his brow lined with a thin film of sweat from the effort. The other passengers have now gathered themselves, more or less in one piece, and are cautiously watching Zoe and Anthony struggle with Dylan's unresponsive body, in the hope of injecting some life into him. The only exception is Kasey, who is obliviously scurrying around, collecting things and sorting them into stringently tidy piles.

"Fifteen, sixteen…" Anthony mumbles to himself, stopping the repetitions so that Zoe can breathe into Dylan once again, "…this isn't working, Zoe. I-I think we're gonna have to-"

"_Noo!"_ Zoe shrieks, her eyes welling up from the mere thought, "He's not dying because of me!"

Refusing to give up, she takes in another breath, and exhales once more, forcing Dylan's stubborn lungs to expand yet again.

"Zoe!" Anthony tries to command her, "This is pointless! Just-"

"Shut up!" Zoe cries, tears now streaking down her reddened cheeks, "He saved my life! So I'm not giving up on him!"

She takes in a deeper still breath, and exhales with force into Dylan's lungs, desperately _hoping_ that a miracle would happen, here and now…

"ZOE!" Anthony yells, physically grabbing her attention via her arm, "Stop, OK?! He's-"

But Anthony is interrupted yet again this evening by a soft spluttering beside them.

Hacking and coughing, Dylan's eyes finally flicker open, revealing themselves to the world once again, and a flood of applause bursting his shattered senses.

"H-hey…" he gasps, straining and failing to lift his head, "What happened…?"

"Oh! You're OK!" Zoe cries, now nothing short of euphoric, and leaning forwards to hug him. But a few pained grunts from Dylan leads to Zoe deciding that perhaps hugging _isn't_ the best idea right now.

"You stubborn bastard" Anthony chuckles, shaking his head fondly, "We were _this _close to giving up on you" he adds with a thumb and forefinger gesture.

"_You_ were, maybe!" Zoe glares at him, before turning back to the shattered Dylan and beaming, "But you're safe now!"

"G-guess I have you guys to thank?" he sputters weakly, finding the strength to lift his arm into the air to search for Zoe's, who scoops it up all too happily, "…heh. Thanks"

"We were… we were worried about you, Dylan" Sarah mumbles thickly, now somewhat conscious and holding onto Miranda Miller for support. Her hair is heavy with clotted blood from a rather nasty looking head wound, and another vicious puncture _through_ her shoulder has left her arm a bloody mess as well.

"Y-yeah, that was scary" the girl known as Avril admits, rubbing her painful shoulder and wincing.

"S-sorry" Dylan tries to chuckle, but his chest is sore from a combination of Zoe landing on it, Anthony pounding on it, and Zoe forcing it to expand from the CPR, so the best he can manage is a feeble wheeze…

"Well, now that that's all cleared up" Anthony remarks, standing up gingerly on the unstable terrain, "…now what?"

He looks around, and sees nothing but dead ends all around. The door that had originally granted them all entry onto this death-trap of a ferry has now been jammed shut from the capsizing, the other door to both the Captain's quarters and the sole bathroom is high up in the far corner, far out of reach for those who are healthy, forget the injured, and although there is a small hole in the opposite wall, perhaps big enough for one person, once again it's out of reach.

"So… anyone think they can get up there?" Anthony muses, looking skywards and drawing the attention of most of the others.

"Shouldn't you do it?" Kelvin suggests, stretching his sore back muscles almost in an illustrative manner, "Cause you're… y'know, not injured?"

"But it's… all the way up there…" Anthony begins complaining, before being pushed aside by an exasperated Tess, "wuss"

She grabs the rope that she'd previously lassoed around the chair leg to help Anthony down, and ascends it with astounding agility and efficiency, in spite of her damaged limbs. Balancing between two of the suspended chair legs, she loosens the rope once again, "Should I go for the hole or the Captain's quarters…" she mumbles, expecting some semblance of feedback from the crowd beneath her.

"Captain's quarters" Kelvin suggests, mixing together some powders into a tube, "He should have some form of communication in there, like a radio or something"

"Got it" Tess murmurs, looking for a place to attach her rope now that it's looped in her hands. First she contemplates the door handle, but her weight, although slight, would just pull the door shut and bar her entry, not to mention the rope could possibly come loose and send her crashing back to the ground again.

"…bad idea" Tess berates herself, itching her overly fluffy hair. Another brainwave has her looping her rope around one of the hooks on the top wall. A few test tugs tells her that it's sturdy enough to support her weight, despite looking the complete opposite, so she lifts off of the ground, and instead of climbing up to the hole like the rope's position would have everyone believe, she simply walks along the wall with it in a prone position, heading towards the captain's quarters.

Meanwhile…

"H-hey, whatcha making?" Miranda Miller, the youngest of the group, nervously asks Kelvin, who is still working on his collection of powders.

"Something that can hopefully help us" he replies brusquely, now looking around, "Hey, cleaning dude" he mentions at Kasey, "Seen any phosphorous anywhere?"

"Phosphor…what?" Kasey mumbles, flummoxed at this bizarre word, "I do apologise, good sir! I wouldn't know if I had come across this… floss forest or not. What would it resemble?"

"A little green tin, about this big?" Kelvin answers, with hand gestures to illustrate a size relative to that of a can of soda.

"Green tin…" Kasey murmurs, rummaging through his tidy piles once again looking for it. "Ahah, here we are!" he cries, extracting the little tin from a pile and handing it to Kelvin, "Here's your phoss…florist!"

"…thanks" Kelvin mutters, blinking in disbelief at Kasey, unable to understand how such a simple word – in his mind – was too difficult for Kasey to comprehend.

Kelvin carefully opens his tin, praying that the contents haven't been ruined, whilst up above them, Tess finds herself standing on the skinny doorframe between the main part of the ship and the captain's quarters. Tying the end of the rope around her waist for safety, she turns around to inspect the room she's about to enter… and immediately regrets her decision.

"Ohh…" She gags, straining to retain her stomach contents upon seeing the gory sight that is the captain. From what she can gather, he was impaled by the window as the boat tipped sideways, and the bloody pulp below her is all that remains of the man.

"R-r-rest in peace…" she gulps solemnly, suppressing her nausea and climbing over towards the control panel.

"H-hello?" Tess murmurs, speaking into the radio after a few moments of searching, "Can… anyone hear me?"

She waits a little for a response, but has no such luck. No reply, or even the static of a lack of signal is there to reassure her.

"Guess not…" Tess sighs, looking out through the cracked window and just barely making out the image of a city in the distance, with its picturesque lighting almost serving as a beacon of hope in her eyes, by contrasting brilliantly against the rapidly darkening sky.

"N-no luck with the radio" she dodges, entering back into the main room and hiding the fact that her experience in the previous one has hit her a lot harder than she'd like to admit, "Signal's dead"

"Hey… are you OK?" Sarah asks tentatively, seeing straight through Tess' façade, "And what about the captain, is he OK? I'd like to give him a piece of my mind…"

Basically everyone else except for the peace loving Zoe make noises of agreement, but Tess shoots down their hopes with "You're outta luck there. The captain's… _gone_"

"Gone?" Anthony requests sceptically, "So is there some means of escape from his quarters, then?"

"No, not that kinda gone…" Tess sighs, realising that she may soon have to concede to the inevitable, "He's… _gone!"_

"Please madam, you make little sense!" Kasey complains, carefully putting down the battered, headless plushie he was holding and addressing her, "Is the captain here or is he not?"

"He's dead, OK?!" Tess cries, venting her frustration with an overly violent gesture, "The guy's been crushed under his own equipment, and shish kebabbed by the glass he was crushed into. He… he never had a chance…"

Silence is the only thing to permeate the awkward scene for quite some time after this. Waves sloshing past and the whistling of the wind outside are basically the only things that can be heard.

"…serves him right" Anthony eventually scoffs, crossing his arms, "On a floating safety hazard like this, he had it coming to him"

"Stop it, Anthony…" Zoe sniffs, "That's a really nasty thing to say!"

"It's… kinda right though" Sarah grumbles, rubbing the back of her head angrily, "He did dump us all on this rustbucket and completely disregard our safety"

"B-but it wasn't _his_ fault it crashed?" Avril Kenaz tries to plead, concerned for the late captain's perspective.

"He cared more about being sued than the ship's condition" Kelvin deadpans, gently shaking his creation, "'Sides, he couldn't have been more incompetent a ferryman if he tried"

"I'd rather you _didn't _disrespect the dead, thank you!"

"Disrespect? He disrespected us by nearly throwing our lives away!"

"This is why I didn't wanna tell them…" Tess sighs to herself, "OK, all of you, shut the hell up!"

Her angry outburst stuns the group into silence, so Tess takes her opportunity.

"If we don't get off this boat, we're gonna end up just like the captain, OK?" she announces imperiously, "There's a city in the distance, so I'm gonna see if I can climb out through that wee hole and get some help. Can you guys promise not to kill each other 'til I get back?!"

"…here, take this" Kelvin eventually mutters, throwing his creation skywards towards Tess, which she catches deftly.

"…what is it?" She asks after staring at it for a few seconds.

"It's a flare" Kelvin explains, "It'll activate with friction and make us easier to spot in this dark… I hope"

"You hope?" Tess enunciates, raising a cynical eyebrow, "You don't sound so confident"

"Well, given what I had, it wasn't easy to make" Kelvin excuses himself, "But it _shouldn't_ be dangerous!"

"…got it" Tess deadpans, tucking the tube carefully into her belt and ascending the rope once more, this time climbing for the tiny hole up the top of the tipped ship. The hole itself is just barely wide enough for her shoulders to squeeze through, but the threat of rusty, torn metal is rather prevalent, and thus requires her full attention.

"Careful…" she mutters, placing her hands gently on the rim of the fissure, pulling herself up and slowly nudging her skinny body through, vigilant to avoid a vicious infection from the scythe-like rust, which could easily tear a new gash in the already tender flesh on her thigh.

"Why the hell am I doing this?" Tess asks herself, negotiating her skinny hips through the gap and breaking away some more rust so that she can move a little more freely. "Look out below" she calls, watching the pieces of rusty metal fall from the ship and crash to the floor below, but thankfully far enough away from anyone else.

"Hey, careful!" Miranda Miller objects, her eyes flashing with disdain, "You trying to hurt us?"

"If my efforts aren't good enough, I can just come back down…" Tess threatens, voice somewhat muffled from inside the ferry due to her tiny frame blocking up almost the entirety of the hole, "And we'll see how you do instead. How's that sound?"

"…"

"Ignore her, Tess. You're doing a good j-owww…" Anthony encourages Tess, earning himself a punch in the arm from a displeased Miranda. Tess' hips finally pop through the little hole, and her legs slowly follow, once again careful not to get assaulted by rust.

"So uhh… how do I work this?" Tess asks, removing the flare from her belt and showing it to the crowd below for illustrative purposes.

"Just scratch the pointy bit against something that'll generate enough friction to set it off" Kelvin instructs, "Oh, and you're holding it upside down"

"…oh" Tess almost chuckles, flipping it around and holding it 'correctly', "It's not gonna explode on me or something, is it?"

"Umm… I really _hope_ not?" Kelvin mutters self-consciously, scratching the back of his head, "You should be fine as long as you don't get too close to the fuse or sparks?"

"…challenge accepted" Tess mumbles, looking around for a means of igniting the flare, and simply dragging it against the ferry's hull to see if that will work, out of a mixture of frustration and a lack of options. But sure enough, the rusty, warped metal proves the perfect catalyst for the incendiary baton, sending violent sparks in all directions!

"Wow. That actually worked" Tess mumbles to herself, holding the flare as far away from her as her arm would allow, and covering her very flammable hair with the other.

And like an Emolga that has just eaten a bowl of pink pokeblocks, the flare charges up passionately and takes off, launching a gaudily bright stream of crimson into the night sky…

* * *

It's an ordinary day at work for Jones and O'Brien, the two in charge of the night shift at the naval control centre. Jones has fallen asleep in his chair once again, and O'Brien is entertaining himself by balancing random objects on his partner's slumbering body.

"Easy does it…" he snickers, carefully nudging a splayed stapler into a prone position on Jones' nose. The stapler eventually wobbles into place, and O'Brien has all but begun his celebrations over a 'job well done' when a bright flash of light explodes in the distance!

"WHOA!" O'Brien shouts, shocked by the scarlet sparkle that has streamed across the sky, "What the?!"

His excitement wakes up Jones, who falls off of his chair with a thud and sends the stapler crashing to the floor, spilling staples everywhere.

"Stop foolin' around, Jones!" O'Brien suppresses a laugh, "We've got a distress signal off the coast!"

"Yeah, yeah…" Jones grumbles, heaving his rotund body back into his chair, "…holy crap, that _is_ a Code Blue! Well what're you waiting for, an invitation?! Get on the damn radio and get someone out there!"

"Gotcha!" O'Brien replies, picking up the receiver and contacting;

* * *

"Coastguard, do you copy, I repeat, do you copy?!" O'Brien's voice crackles through the connection, waking yet another person up from a peaceful sleep.

"Hunh?" the coastguard mumbles, barely awake, "McKenzie here. The hell's yer problem?"

"Sorry for the wakeup call, McKenzie, but we've got a Code Blue, West South West of your position!"

"Code Blue?!" McKenzie sputters, bursting awake, "I'm on it! Lads, get yer arses in gear!"

McKenzie puts the radio receiver down as he and several other men in uniform assemble on a speedboat, which is quickly kicked into life and unleashed onto the calm dusky seas, heading towards the telltale crimson star in the sky.

"Situation currently unknown" McKenzie's gruff burr growls into the radio, as their rescue boat nears the indicated location "There appears to be an upturned vessel near the coastline. Going in closer to investigate"

At McKenzie's order, the ship is slowed to a crawl, and powerful searchlights focus their beam on the vessel. The wrecked, rusted exterior is slowly scanned, highlighting a small figure with jet black hair streaked with platinum blonde, dark denim jeans with a torn leg, bright red converse trainers and a red and black flannelette shirt, the right arm of which has been torn to shreds. The figure is waving to the boat for attention, which is more than enough to alert McKenzie.

"There's a wee girl!" He cries, grabbing the megaphone and calling out to her, "'Scuse me lass, are ye OK?!"

"I'm fine!" Tess Nicholson calls back, finally able to put her arm down, "There's eight others in the boat. One serious"

"Serious?" McKenzie rumbles, picking up his radio again, "Gotcha. Hey, we're gon' need a chopper out here, Jones!"

"Hey, how'd you get out, lass?" McKenzie queries, noticing that there's no logical exit or entrance to the boat, due to the angle it's tipped at.

"Through this hole" Tess explains, gesturing to a tiny crevice roughly the width of an average man's _leg_, "But none of the other guys can get out, so you're gonna need to cut it open or something!"

"You heard her, lads!" McKenzie yells, "Fire 'em up!"

"Just a few more minutes, guys" Tess calls down through the hole to her comrades, who is then beckoned away by McKenzie.

"It'll be dangerous up there, lass" he instructs, as two men direct her down to the rescue boat, each armed with chainsaws. Enormous chunks of the boat's hull are cut away, revealing a gaggle of dishevelled, but mostly fine teenagers, with the exception of one. A male with untidy blonde hair and chipped glasses is currently lying down in a bruised mess, resting his head on the lap of young girl.

"Oh, you're here!" she calls, wiping away her blood stained fringe and waving her arm frantically, "Take Dylan first, please! He's a mess!"

"I-I'm fi…" the young man tries to object, but his body appears to lack the strength to even utter more than a few wheezy words.

"Oh, perfect timing!" McKenzie chuckles, as the unmistakeable _wucawucawucawuca_ of a helicopter's rotors approach their location.

"You're gonna be fine now Dylan, OK?" Zoe Fiori reassures Dylan Cameron, who is carefully scooped up onto a spine board by the two coastguard paramedics and carried to the huge gaping hole in the boat's hull.

"Steady now…" Jones tells himself, slowly lowering O'Brien down on a winch to collect Dylan.

"Thanks…" he mumbles deliriously, now tightly secured to the winch and being lifted into the helicopter. It isn't long before he is safely tucked away inside of it, and speedily lifted away to the city in the distance, where Jones radios information to the local hospital about their next patient.

The rest of the group are then slowly helped off of the boat, starting with Sarah Henderson, being in the worst state after Dylan. Suffering from a punctured shoulder and nasty head wound, the hazel eyed brunette slowly wobbles towards the paramedics, aided by Miranda Miller, sporting green eyes, a matching dress and hairclip, and auburn chest length hair, as well as a milder concussion of her own. The pair are followed by Avril Kenaz, who has dark grey eyes, chestnut brown hair that is also chest length, and a painful sprained shoulder.

"B-but wait, good sirs! I haven't tidied yet!" Kasey Fynch objects, his stubborn orangey hair straying across his freckled face as he is forcefully steered away from the ship and onto the rescue boat.

"Don't worry, we'll take care of the mess" one of the rescue team insists, helping Kelvin Farcius on his way, who has black hair, streaked with dyed brown and insists on covering his eyes with a pair of broken sunglasses, despite it being night.

"Glad this predicament is finally over" he murmurs, hopping onto the rescue boat, leaving just Zoe and Anthony Turner remaining.

"Not a moment too soon, heh" Anthony chuckles meekly, sweeping his black fringe out of his grey eyes and offering Zoe first exit, who gratefully floats past, her extremely long blonde hair draping down past her waist like woven gold.

"D'you… think Dylan's gonna be OK?" Zoe asks Anthony tentatively as the pair stumble into the unsettled rescue boat.

"Yeah, I'm sure he'll be just fine" Anthony reassures her with a playful hair ruffle, "And he's got you to thank"

"Naww, I didn't help much…" Zoe denies bashfully, and Anthony decides against arguing with the poor girl. She's been through a lot tonight.

"Well done tonight, Tess" Anthony thanks her genuinely, placing his arm on her shoulder in the closest form of an embrace he believes she'll allow, "You saved us all"

"…no problem" Tess mutters, shuffling away from him.

"Uhh… I guess now's the time to explain how CPR _isn't _like a kiss" Anthony then laughs awkwardly, sitting down next to her and preparing to choose his words wisely. Meanwhile, the rescue boat revs up again, slowly jetting off to the city in the distance…

* * *

**Author's note: Whoa, it's finally DONE!**

**SO SORRY that this took so long, guys. The combination of waiting for submissions and me getting lost in my GPX addiction left me procrastinating for two straight weeks longer than I'd hoped. D:**

**Sorry!**

**Anyways, I'm really hoping that I haven't disappointed anyone who's submitted one of the five OCs. They are:**

**Avril Kenaz – EonHunter**

**Miranda Miller – JapaneseRockerGirl**

**Tess Nicholson – OceanSpiral**

**Kasey Fynch – Sunbean**

**Kelvin Farcius – Shadow Of Eckhart**

**Some have more activity in this chapter than others, but I assure you they will all make at least one appearance in later chapters. Wouldn't be all too fair otherwise, huh?**

**Oh, and if anyone's keen, I'd really love some character sketches. Anyone artistically inclined here? :3**

**Thanks for reading, people. I'll stop rambling now. :D**

**Please read and review!**


	7. A Turn For The Worse

**A Turn For The Worse**

The last few days or so have been… entertaining, to say the least, for the small group of students from Four Island. Dylan has been spending the entirety in hospital recovering from his ordeal, in what he believed was the comfort of Vermilion Hospital. He has indeed rested up in a hospital, but as for which one…

"Fuchsia City? How the hell did we get there?" An incredulous Dylan gasps, still covered in bruises. His right arm is in a sling, his left leg in a cast, and his face is in disbelief.

"The best they can figure, the captain took a wrong turn at Hamlin Island, and got caught in a rip tide" Zoe attempts to explain with a slight shrug, "I… guess that's reasonable?"

"Reasonable?" Sarah scoffs, her shoulder heavily bandaged, "How can you miss Hamlin Island? It's bigger than Three Island!"

"I-I don't know…" Zoe chuckles airily, finally giving up on trying to find an excuse for the late Captain, "…So. How are you feeling, Dylan?"

"Uhh… I've been better?" he chuckles weakly, still shocked at this new revelation, "What've you guys been doing for… however long I've been here?"

"Ohh, of course, there's like no concept of time in here huh?" Anthony remarks, scratching the back of his head, "You've been here three days today. We've basically just been waiting around for the rescue guys to retrieve our stuff from the shipwreck"

"But they say they've got it all now!" Zoe adds excitedly, swinging her skinny arms to and fro, "And the doctors told us that you're fit to leave the hospital, too!"

"I am?" Dylan replies, stunned. He looks to his broken arm, elevated leg, medical gown and the plethora of bruises covering his body, "Well that's news to me! The hell makes them think that?"

"W-well…" Zoe hesitates, "Maybe that was a bit of an exaggeration…"

"They said that if you're _careful_, you can leave the hospital with _supervision_" Anthony states, correcting Zoe's overenthusiasm, "and we had to convince the doctors to allow that much"

"…ah" Dylan surmises, "That puts things into perspective. So who's gonna supervise me?"

"That's what we're gonna decide in a minute" Anthony answers, "We're gonna collect our stuff, or what's left of it at least, and organise some things. The others are waiting in the reception"

"Ohh, that makes sense" Dylan agrees, "Soo… how'm I getting outta this thing? You guys getting a doctor to help?"

"Shouldn't be that hard?" Zoe squeaks, poking at the rope that's suspending his leg. But an ominous wobble has the rope snapping, and his leg crashing downwards with a painful crunch!

"Oww…" he grunts, the pain ricocheting through him, "SON of a…"

"Oh no!" Zoe whimpers, clapping her hands over her mouth with shock, "I'm so sorry, Dylan!"

"S'alright…" Dylan gasps, clenching his good fist and grimacing as a vain effort to suppress the pain, "You… didn't know!"

"Ohh, no no no!" Zoe trembles, now nothing short of panicky, "I just seem to keep hurting you, don't I?! Sorry sorry sorry sorry-!"

"Z-Zoe!" he grunts, "Stop!"

"Wha?" Zoe cries, stunned, "B-but-"

"Stop apologising and help me outta this bed, OK?" he manages to chuckle weakly, extending his good arm. Shocked, Zoe grabs the arm with one hand, anchors herself by holding onto the bedframe, and slowly wrenches Dylan and his weight out of the bed.

"…why'd he ask her to do it?" Sarah mutters to Anthony in the background, "She weighs barely half of what he does"

"To distract her" Anthony whispers back, "If she helps him, she'll forget about what just happened… I think"

"Oh, right…" Sarah mumbles, nodding in agreement, as Zoe awkwardly helps Dylan balance on his one working foot, "Strange. He never seems to show it, but that Dylan has quite a brain…"

"Th-thanks for helping me up, Zoe" he mutters, looking around self-consciously, mostly because he sees the medical gown he's wearing as a dress, and he's keen to be rid of it as soon as possible, "I'm gonna need something else to help me walk…"

"There's a crutch over here?" Sarah suggests, walking over to the sole crutch and putting two and two together.

"That'll do it" He laughs, gladly accepting it from her, "Now, please tell me I've got some clothes? I gotta get out of this damn dress…"

"Well, all your other clothes were on the boat…" Zoe mumbles, supporting him under the arm once again, which provokes another grimace from Dylan, at the thought of having to suffer the medical gown any longer.

"But we got the clothes you were wearing cleaned, if you don't mind a bloodstain?" she reassures him, pointing to a bag by the bed.

"Bloodstain?" he mumbles, "How'd that happen? I didn't lose any blood, did I?"

"O-oh, that was me…" Zoe admits bashfully, "I kinda… bled on you. Sorry"

"Don't be" Dylan chuckles, squeezing her gently and limping over to the bathroom with her, "This'll be interesting…"

"You sure you'll be OK in there?" Sarah asks tentatively, grabbing the bag and handing it to him, "I mean, you've only got one arm and leg to work with…"

"I guess we'll find out, huh?" he laughs humourlessly, hopping into the room with the bag and crutch balanced in one hand. He nudges the door closed with his injured leg, wedges the crutch against the wall, and drops the bag of clothes onto the toilet lid, "Right. Let's get to work!"

* * *

And a rather awkward moment is had by the other three, who are stuck with little to do but stand there and wait for Dylan to change clothes. Constant stumbling noises can be heard, which doesn't really surprise any of them, nor do the occasional frustrated curses. But what does surprise them is Dylan's utter stubbornness, insisting that he can do this on his own.

"God DAMMIT!" he is heard yelling from outside of the door, followed by a painful sounding crash, "…I'm OK!"

"D'you… think someone should help?" Zoe suggests timidly to Sarah, both of them somewhat unnerved at his angry shouting.

"We can't, we're girls" Sarah mutters, glancing over to the room nervously, "That'd be… wrong"

"Oh God…" Anthony sighs, "Don't tell me I've gotta do it?"

"Like hell!" Dylan shouts from the changing room, hopping about and crashing painfully into the door while trying to get his jeans on, "I don't need any damn help!"

"You heard him" Sarah mumbles, rolling her eyes and collapsing into a chair, "He doesn't need our help"

And the three are left with nothing to do but wait longer as Dylan clumsily forces his unwilling joints into some semblance of 'clothed'. He eventually emerges some twenty minutes later having gained a few extra bruises and a rip in his shirt from trying to force his sling bound arm through the hole. He's begrudgingly conceded to the impossible, and is just letting the sleeve hang free.

"See? Told ya I could do it!" he laughs victoriously, hopping out of the changing room again, "And I only fell over three times!"

His laughter slows down to an awkward mumble, and attention now falls on the faded bloodstain on his shirt, forcing him to glance downwards as well. The small reddish brown mark on his chest, roughly the size of a potato, and shaped like a sideways figure eight without the holes, lay directly above his heart…

"I'll wear it with pride" Dylan remarks, looking to Zoe and smiling. Zoe blushes at this bizarre statement, and he seizes his chance as it arises, "So… we going now?"

"You sure you're OK to?" Anthony raises an eyebrow, "Given your… circumstances?"

"Dude, I just dressed myself like this" Dylan sighs, gesturing to his impaired physical state, "I think I can manage"

"OK then!" Anthony chuckles a little too enthusiastically, "Let's get going, huh?"

With Dylan alternating between hopping and leaning on his single crutch for balance, the four of them slowly make their way out of the room, which has the misfortune of being on the third floor.

"Oh, and I just thought I should let you know…" Anthony suppresses more laughter as Dylan struggles towards the lift, "Elevator's out of order"

"You WHAT?" Dylan moans, stopping and leaning against a wall out of both fatigue and frustration, "Of all times? Seriously?"

"You were supposed to tell him earlier!" Sarah glares at Anthony's sadism, "…sorry, Dylan. We did mean to let you know, but it seems as though _Anthony_ wanted to see you suffer a little more!" she adds, with a complementary punch to the gut for Anthony.

"H-hey…!" he wheezes, now completely winded, "C-c-can't I have a bit of fun?"

"At other people's expense?" Sarah chastises him, "That's just pathetic. I thought you were better than that"

"…sorry" A reproachful Anthony eventually mumbles, still crouched down in pain, "That was… a little nasty"

"Don't worry, Dylan!" Zoe pipes up, strangely cheerful, "We'll help you get downstairs!

And so the group takes to slowly descending the spiral staircase to the ground floor, seeing as they cannot use the lift. With each thudding, awkward step, Dylan becomes more and more frustrated, wanting to simply slide down the banister instead, as that would yield faster results. But the prospect of injuring himself further echoes in the back of his mind, just barely suppressing his desire to slide down.

"Damn… stairs!" he grunts, plodding down yet another one and reaching the halfway mark, "Who the hell invented them anyway?!"

"Someone who was always looking up" Zoe squeaks, somehow appearing both wise and adorable at the same time, "I'll bet he was tired of just looking up at the heavens, so he built a stairway to try and reach them…"

"And when he ultimately fell…" Anthony humours her, rolling his eyes at her 'philosophy'.

"Well then, the way I see it, he either grew wings, or had someone to catch him" Zoe dreams, "Either way, he made it to where he was supposed to be…"

"Wait, what?" Sarah interjects, "You're saying that some _thing_ is controlling our lives, and we've no say in the matter?"

"Nooo, not at all!" Zoe giggles, "I'm saying that we make our own paths in life, but every detail of it is important"

"So the people you meet, the choices you make… all paramount?" Anthony mumbles, cottoning on.

"Yep!" Zoe chimes, "You follow your chosen path to your destination. You can't be going the wrong way, cause it's your life, y'know? And you take it… one step at a time!"

Just as she says this, she and Dylan clear the last step of the stairs.

"If you do things at your own pace, and don't give up, nothing can stand in your way" Zoe finishes up, glancing behind her, "See? Like the stairs!"

"Oh, I get it…" Dylan finally realises, "'Be yourself', 'Do things your own way'… you're like a walking fortune cookie, Zoe!"

"Small, fragile, and full of random advice?" Sarah surmises, looking at the tiny Zoe - who is somehow not buckling under Dylan's weight - and quashing more laughter.

"And I give hugs too!" She giggles, stretching her arms as far as they would reach around Dylan's chest and squeezing to illustrate this notion, "Fortune Cookies don't do that…"

"That makes you a heap better than a fortune cookie, eheh…" Dylan chuckles, releasing his crutch for a moment and ruffling her absurdly long hair with his good hand, "You give hugs, and your advice isn't stupid. 'Back away from individuals who are too impulsive'? The hell's that supposed to mean?"

"It means I should avoid all you crazy weirdos" A voice interrupts him, approaching the small group. "But here I stay" Tess mutters "What took you all so long?"

Tess has replaced her torn denim jeans with a basically identical pair, and her red flannelette shirt has been exchanged for a blue one.

"S-sorry Tess" Dylan mumbles, "I'm kinda having trouble walking, y'know?"

"Guess…" Tess concedes, turning away again, "So… pile's over there. We've already got our crap"

She gestures to a small pile of things not far from the bustling reception area, where the other four ferry passengers are simply waiting around idly.

"Hopefully we haven't lost too much…" Sarah sighs, picking up a ruined book and sighing some more, "…my photos"

"Good thing my clothes survived" Anthony mutters, picking up what's his and stuffing it into his bag, "I didn't like the thought of travelling around in dirty clothes…"

"That's the least of your worries" Dylan complains, "I've lost my damn camping stuff"

And little by little, the pile of belongings is slowly collected up by their respective owners, having been organised into tidy piles by the ever structured Kasey.

"Wow, Athena survived?" Dylan gasps, negotiating the little Absol plushie into his bag with his one good arm, "That's a relief. SHUT IT, Anthony!"

"Well it's a plushie!" Anthony laughs teasingly, "How old are you, F-"

"Guys" Sarah interrupts them, "Look"

The attention of both young men is drawn to Zoe, who is simply staring, dejected, at the lack of a pile on the floor.

"What's wrong, Zoe?" Anthony dares ask, "You lose something?"

"M-my Monopoly set…" she mumbles, wringing her hands together, "It isn't here"

"Oh no…" Dylan gasps, staggering forwards to hug the poor girl, "All of it?"

"I can't find any…" Zoe murmurs, with the smallest of sniffs, "That's a shame. I… I really liked my Monopoly set…"

"These were… all they could find" Avril mentions, digging into the pocket of her skinny jeans and handing Zoe the contents, "I'm so sorry…"

"That's alright, honey, it's not your fault" Zoe eases Avril's compassion, and studies the pieces in her hand; the Poke Doll, the Running Shoes, and the green die…

"You gonna be OK, Zo?" Dylan asks tentatively, noticing that her blue grey eyes are so very close to spilling their contents onto the floor.

"I think I'll be OK…" she mumbles, staring wistfully at the pieces in her hand, "But don't worry about me, you need help!"

Next thing Dylan knows, Zoe's hooked herself under his sling bound arm, and is giggling once again.

"What… the?" he gawps, stunned, but shakes off his confusion, "S-so, we all ready?"

"You've just gotta sign yourself out" Anthony explains, gesturing to the receptionist's desk. Dylan slowly approaches the counter, and is handed some paperwork by the receptionist. He's forced to scrawl a left handed signature across the parchment, but otherwise deems it a job well done, and the small group leaves the hospital out the front entrance to plan their next move.

"So… let's get sorted into groups" Sarah suggests, "The old man said we should help each other on this, so groups seems like a good idea to me?"

"We've discussed this while you guys were away…" Miranda Miller slowly mumbles, "And I thought that Kasey and I should… go together?"

"Indeed!" Kasey himself announces, stepping forwards, "She and I both are looking for Sandshrew, so it would seem like a good idea to look together, correct?"

"Well, if we're going by that logic…" Kelvin suggests, "Aren't you looking for Oddish, Tess?"

"…yes" she replies bluntly, having found an apple to munch on, "Why?"

"Uhh… I was wondering if you wouldn't mind a travelling buddy?" Kelvin asks, now very aware of her piercing stare.

"Don't need one" Tess mutters, leaning nonchalantly against the wall of the hospital and coating the apple with peanut butter, before cramming the strange combination into her mouth, "Teams just slow people down"

"B-but there's safety in numbers!" Kelvin flails, trying to plead some sense into the stubborn Tess, "What if you get in trouble?"

"Then I'll get out of trouble" Tess muffles through apple butter, "I'll be fine"

"Well can we at _least_ walk together?" Kelvin sighs, now frustrated, "I mean, we're gonna be going the same way anyways…"

"Oddish live nearby" Tess swallows, discouraging him once again, "If you wanna walk to the next route with me, knock yourself out. But stay outta my way, OK?"

"That's better than nothing, I guess…" Kelvin surrenders, throwing his arms out in exasperation, "I can make a flare out of a toilet roll, but I can't make heads or tails of a woman…"

"Someone's gotta babysit Dylan, cause he's, well… crippled" Anthony explains to the remaining people who haven't 'buddied up', "Anyone gonna volunteer?"

The words have barely left his lips when Zoe's hand shoots into the air, "ME!"

"I'm already taking care of him, eheh…" she giggles, indicating to how she was already 'supporting' him from under his damaged arm, "I need to thank you anyway, Dylan"

"For what?" Dylan asks, now completely confused over this whole scenario.

"For saving my life, silly!" she laughs, hugging him around the chest once again, "If it weren't for you, who knows what might've happened?"

"Heyyy, it was just what any other guy would've done…" Dylan mumbles self-consciously, wanting to scratch the back of his head, but finding it impossible with one arm tucked inside of his shirt and the other holding onto a crutch, "And you saved me afterwards, so we're even, got it?"

"Fine…" Zoe reluctantly concedes, "But I'm still taking care of you, Dylan!"

More playful giggling tells the crowds that Zoe isn't planning on changing her mind.

"OK, that's that settled… I think" Anthony murmurs, scanning the remaining people without a partner; him, Sarah and Avril.

"Three people left?" Sarah queries, "Damn, that's awkward. Hey Avril, looks like you're gonna have to be with us in a three. That OK with you?"

"Umm… I actually think I'll be OK on my own, thanks?" She denies them, to the surprise of everyone, "I mean… the only pokémon I've got that's even native to Kanto is my Eevee, and you can't find them in the wild here…"

"You can in Unova" Kelvin intercepts, using an excuse to display his knowledge.

"Yeah, I know, that's my point" Avril mumbles, nodding graciously in his direction, "This means I have to get some transport to another region straight away, and you guys are all here, so it'd be silly with me following you around, huh?"

"Makes sense" Anthony agrees, "So it's just you and I then, eh Sarah?"

"Lucky me…" Sarah deadpans, glancing away from him with the slightest of huffs.

* * *

And thus the five groups of teenagers go their separate ways. Tess and Kelvin head east from Fuchsia City to Route 15 in the hopes of finding some wild Oddish to study. Avril plans on journeying to Vermilion City, like originally scheduled, going via Celadon and Saffron Cities in the meantime, seeing if she can find out anything about Eevee on the way. Miranda Miller has persuaded Kasey Finch to not go fishing for a Horsea just yet, having heard of a man with a rare fossil collection in town. Anthony and Sarah, whilst having no pokémon in common, have noticed that a lot of their pokémon have common habitats around the Mt Moon area. And thus, they are headed in that direction, also leaving east of Fuchsia for Vermilion City, despite the trip's length.

* * *

"Heh, just us, then" Dylan mumbles insecurely to the tiny Zoe, as she waves off Miranda and Kasey.

"Best of luck, guys!" she squeaks, waving frantically.

"I wish you the very best also!" Kasey calls rather loudly, before being dragged off by an irate Miranda.

"So, what's first on your list, Dylan?" Zoe asks him enthusiastically.

"Well, umm… I don't actually know where any of my pokémon are in the wild…" he slowly admits, hanging his head.

"…oh" Zoe hesitates, "Well, a nice man told me that you can find Poliwag right here in Fuchsia City, so we could go find a Poliwag, and see if someone can tell you where you can find your pokémon?"

"Sounds like a good start!" Dylan agrees, and the pair slowly trudge through the lumpy bricked roads of Fuchsia City.

"Y'know, I _can_ walk on my own…" Dylan laughs, stumbling across the uneven ground, "Why're you so insistent on helping me?"

"It's like I said" Zoe mumbles, looking around as they attempt to navigate the city's twisted, confusing streets, "Someone's got to look after you. And I'm someone!"

"Y-you're not just someone, Zoe" Dylan remarks, tripping over a brick that was jutting out just a little too far, "To do what you do… it takes someone pretty damn special. A normal girl would've just left me alone by now…"

"Ahh well. You're stuck with me and my strangeness!" Zoe starts laughing, but an auspicious sight grabs her attention;

"Dylan, look!" she gasps under her breath, pointing, "There's a tailfin!"

He looks towards where she's pointing, and sure enough, poking out from behind a building is the tailfin of a pokémon!

Broad and flat, the mostly white tailfin is roughly six inches long, and sports a thin strip of blue stretched along the middle, ending about an inch before the tail itself does.

"Is that what I think it is?!" Dylan blurts out, advancing towards the tail and making a lot of noise in the progress. But he pays the price almost instantly, because the host pokémon is spooked by his sudden outburst of noise and flees, taking its tail with it and out of sight!

"Ohh, you silly!" Zoe laughs, half amused, half frustrated, "Now we gotta chase it! C'mon, let's get going!"

"You go on ahead, I'll just hold you up!" Dylan suggests earnestly, extracting himself from her.

"Oh, b-but!" Zoe objects, clearly in disagreement, "But I-"

"It'll get away if you're not quick!" Dylan pleads, trying to inspire some sense, "I'll be fine, don't worry!"

"O-O-O-OK then!" Zoe stammers, dashing off after the rapidly disappearing pokémon, azure blue in colour, while Dylan follows in 'hot' pursuit, wobbling forwards on his one leg and crutch.

Despite being unsteady on its feet, the little blue pokémon is surprisingly nimble, tearing through Fuchsia's difficult streets. Zoe tries her best to keep up, but a combination of the awkward terrain, her lack of knowledge, and the strange angles at which the roads meet lead to her quickly losing track of it.

"Oh noo…!" She puffs, having slowed down to barely a stagger, resting her hand against a house to catch her breath, "L-lost it!"

Meanwhile, Dylan is slowly inching his way forwards on the horribly lumpy roads; bricks jutting out at seemingly random angles seem to always be in the wrong position for him to pivot his crutch, meaning he can't put a lot of weight on it, for fear of having it slip beneath him. And thus, against everything he believes in, Dylan takes his time carefully navigating the gnarled pathways, slowly approaching the distant Zoe, who is still fervently looking around for her fleet-footed fugitive.

"Where… did it go?" she gasps, still short of breath. As much as she would love to continue searching, her tired limbs just aren't letting her, and thus forcing her to retire into just glancing around. Although she has a good idea of what pokémon it is, she realises that it _could_ be anything, and she therefore can't exclude anywhere as a potential hiding place.

"Oh dear…" she mumbles, her energy coming back to her at last, "It could be hiding in those trees, or the bushes, or behind another house, anywhere! And Dylan's probably-"

"Can I help you, miss?"

A shriek of fright has Zoe jumping about three feet into the air, utterly petrified of this sudden interruption.

"Wh-wh-who's there?!" she cries after eventually finding her voice again, her hand pressed against her chest and her heart beating fiercely.

"Are you OK, child?" An elderly voice croaks. Zoe peers to her right, and spies an old lady staring at her from a park bench just a few metres away, "You seem a bit… jumpy"

"I am a bit, yeah…" Zoe chuckles weakly, her heart still hammering, "H-h-have you seen any pokémon run past?"

"Run past?" she enquires knowledgeably, "There aren't many pokémon in Fuchsia that run, child. Mostly birds and fish. Are you sure?"

"Yes, positive!" Zoe chimes with a vibrant nod, her long hair fluttering around as she does so, "It was little, and blue, and it had a long white tail!"

"Long white tail?" the old lady murmurs, the cogs in her brain ticking away, "That sounds a little like a Wartortle. Don't think you'll see any of those running around…"

"No no, smaller than a Wartortle" Zoe explains, with hand gestures for size illustration, "It was about this big, and blue?" she reiterates.

"Well… there are some _amphibious_ pokémon in Fuchsia…" The old lady murmurs, "Perhaps you could check around the lake? Just follow that little path down by the row of trees, and you'll see a pair of houses. The lake's just behind them, you can't miss it"

"Oh, really?!" Zoe gasps, ecstatic, "Thank you so much!"

She turns to dash off again, but suddenly remembers "Oh, and if you see a boy following after me, with one leg in a cast, could you please tell him where I am?"

"Sure thing kiddo" the old lady chirps, waving cheerfully towards her.

"Thank youuuuuu!" Zoe cries, running off in the direction of the lake, following the line of trees towards a pair of houses in the distance, with Dylan slowly thudding along far behind her. She's nothing short of jubilant when the old lady's word instantly proves fruitful, for as soon as she approaches the body of water, she can spy activity.

"Oh _gosh…_" she gasps, kneeling down behind a tree to get a close – yet covert – glance. Surrounding the lake just barely ten metres away from her is a family of Poliwag!

"Should I wait for Dylan first…?" she muses, creeping ever so closer to the group of Poliwag, with one Poliwhirl tending to them, apparently their mother. A glance behind her tells her that Dylan isn't catching up to her any time soon, because she can't even see him toddling his way past the old lady.

"Well, I know where they are…" she mumbles inwardly, "So I'll go find Dylan, and bring him back here!"

Full of manic energy once again, she dashes back to whence she came, to go scoop up an exhausted Dylan.

* * *

"Dylan! There you are!" she cries, after circling back to find him resting against the same wall she had chosen earlier.

"Who would've thought… walking… could be so damn… HARD?!" he gasps, straining to catch his breath.

"Good news, Dylan!" Zoe exclaims, waving her arms excitedly, "I've found some Poliwag!"

"Y-you have?" he puffs, pushing off of the wall gently and repositioning himself, "…'grats…"

"Yeah, so I'm gonna help you get there!" Zoe announces, moving to support him once again.

"B-but what if they all run away before you get back?" Dylan reasons, his breath now back to some semblance of normal.

"Then we can just wait 'til they come back" Zoe shrugs, hoisting him up from under the arm, "I know where they live now! Eheh…"

"Cause that sounds perfectly normal…" Dylan sniggers playfully, making sure his sarcasm was obvious as the pair slowly make their way back towards the line of trees in the distance.

"Well, we were told to study them as well, so watching them for a little while can't hurt, huh?" Zoe chimes, with the sarcasm somehow bypassing her completely. She simply just carries on smiling innocently, utterly oblivious. Meanwhile, Dylan stares at her incredulously, wondering how someone could've missed that. With an awkward silence slowly creeping up on the pair, they trudge towards Zoe's 'vantage point'

* * *

"Well, here we are" Zoe muses, letting Dylan lean against a tree and peering through a convenient – but absurdly small – copse between two branches, "But where are they…?"  
Much to her disappointment, in the ten or so minutes it had taken her to collect Dylan and return with him, the family of Poliwag she had intended on studying had vanished!  
"Aww, don't tell me I've got to find them again?" she complains, with thin traces of panic beginning to mar her otherwise demure features.  
"Uhh, Zo?" Dylan remarks, looking out from behind a different tree, "You mean those Poliwag?"  
"Hunh?" Zoe mumbles, "Where, Dylan? I can't see any?"  
"Try taking a step back" Dylan laughs, reminding her that she's practically buried her face in the tree so that she can 'spy' on the Poliwag, and thus can't see further than a few inches either side.  
"Ohh, riight!" Zoe giggles, extracting herself from the confines of the tree and peering around it, "Oo, there they are!"

Barely a foot or so from where she was originally looking due to her 'limited' vision, she can see the small group of Poliwag once again!

Roughly ten or so in number, the small group is amidst a session of feeding. Their mother seems to have found a rather large clump of Salveyo Weed for them to feast on.

"They like Salveyo Weed, huh?" Zoe muses, scribbling down in her journal, "The little ones must be too young to get it themselves. What do you think, Dylan?"

"Uh-uh" Dylan shrugs, "Why're you asking me?"

"Secondary perspective!" Zoe chimes, pen and notepad at the ready, "It'll help with the accuracy of my report!"

"Oh. Wow, you're taking this seriously, huh?" Dylan remarks, more than slightly surprised, "Well, uhh…"

He scans the small family of Poliwag, now seemingly full on Salveyo Weed and quickly falling asleep. "They seem a lot like your Poliwag, huh? Doing nothing but eating and sleeping…"

"Well they're just babies, what do you expect them to do?" She giggles, watching them with jubilance, "OK, that's enough study. I wonder if I can catch one?"

"What, now?" Dylan interjects, "While their mother's guarding them?

"Ahh, good point…" Zoe concedes, snapping her fingers in realisation, "But wait, what about that one just over there?"

She points a little further to the right, where another of the Poliwag children, one with more of a preference for personal space, it would seem, has curled up on a fallen oak leaf a couple of feet further away from the main group, who have just fallen asleep in a disorganised bundle on and around their mother, who also appears to be slowly drifting off.

"Go for it?" Dylan suggests lightly, and Zoe is all too eager to oblige.

"Alright, let's go!" she whispers, creeping towards them while Dylan hops behind her, finding it a quicker mode of transport for short bursts.

"Come on out, Mocha!" she cries, procuring a poke ball from the depths of her bag and releasing its inhabitant. Her Minccino appears in a bright burst of crimson light, happily toddling around its trainer and raring to fight. The mother Poliwhirl is however roused by this sudden activity, and leaps into action, scooping up all the children she can carry and disappearing into the pool. However, in her haste, she was forced to neglect the one child that had chosen to sleep on its own today. And that Poliwag is now cornered by Minccino!

"Wait, you brought a pokémon with you?" Dylan inquires, distinctly remembering that she deposited her pokémon in the PC before they left Four Island.

"Well, I meant to…" Zoe admits, looking down at her little Minccino and smiling, "But I thought it'd be a good idea to bring _one_ pokémon with me, just in case, y'know?"

"Ohh, for a protection sorta thing?" Dylan asks, cottoning on.

"Yup yup!" Zoe chimes, elated, "OK, give it a Wake Up Slap, Mocha!" she then orders, her normal calm idiosyncrasy suddenly dissolving into a fiery determination. Mocha the Minccino responds appropriately, slapping the sleepy Poliwag across the face several times with force!

The tiny Poliwag is woken up with a painful jolt, and bounces to its feet. It looks around desperately for its mother, before realising that there's no one there to protect it.

"Poliii…" it whimpers slowly, mustering up the courage to spray Cappa with a feeble Water Gun. It barely even fazes Mocha, who even giggles at the pitiful attack. Meanwhile, the mother Poliwhirl has returned from the depths of the lake, ready to risk life and limb to save her baby!

"OK Mocha, time for a Tail Slap!" Zoe commands, pointing at the already exhausted Poliwag. Seeing how she and her Minccino are completely oblivious to the danger looming from behind, Dylan feels the need to warn them with, "Zoe, watch out!"

"Hunh?" Zoe murmurs, turning to face Dylan instead of reacting defensively, like she should've, "What's wrong, Dyl-"

"Whirrrrl!"

And next thing Zoe knows, Mocha is the victim of a crushing Body Slam, courtesy of Poliwhirl!

"Poliiiii!" the baby Poliwag cries, jubilant over its mother's return and confident that everything will be alright now.

"Oh no, Mocha!" Zoe cries, noticing her Minccino's sudden plight and beginning to panic, "A-are you OK?!"

"Miiii-in!" Mocha grunts, squirming out from underneath Poliwhirl's bulk with a pained gasp, "ch-chii…"

"Good girl!" Zoe exults, jumping up and down happily, "Think you can fend off the Poliwhirl with a Tail Slap?"

"…min!" Mocha winces, favouring her right leg due to a painful looking bruise on her ankle. However, all pain is forgotten when Mocha suddenly spins at high speed, lashing the mother Poliwhirl in the face with her tail one, two, three, four, five times!

Poliwhirl is barely repelled by the attack, but falls back, knowing that it's no match for the feisty Minccino. Clearly angry, it jumps back into the pool with a splash, and seems to disappear…

"Wow. That was easy" Zoe remarks obliviously, readying a second poke ball, "OK, good job Mocha! Let's catch this Poliwag!"

"Minaririnoooo!" Mocha jabbers excitedly, happy with herself for having pleased her trainer, and resuming her usual hobby of dancing clumsily. Zoe throws her capsule, which bounces off of Poliwag's rubbery skin, and bursts open, engulfing its potential captive in a crimson hue.

"I hope this works…" Zoe murmurs nervously, watching the poke ball bounce to the ground and roll about, evidently due to the Poliwag inside trying manically to escape, "It's my only spare poke ball..."

But as the Poke ball struggles on the ground, both young adults watching it fixatedly, a dark shadow threatens beneath the water's surface…

* * *

**Author's note:**

**Happy Halloween everyone!**

**First up, apologies for the horrible title. I drew a blank. D:**

**Hope you're not too candied up to leave me a review, because this'll be the last update for at least a month!**

**Yup, that's right. I'm taking part in NaNoWriMo this year, and what little attention span I have will be taken up by attempting to write 50,000 words of novel between now and December! Wish me luck? :3**

**Forgive me if you feel that Dylan's hospital scene was a bit… unreal. I kinda shot myself in the foot by giving him those injuries, and had to work my way around them. But there is a reason behind them, I promise!**

**Seeing as it'll be my last update for a little while, I thought I'd leave you with a bit of a cliffhanger; what's the dark shadow? :D**

**If you're thinking of reviewing, I'd love feedback on how I'm doing with your submitted OC (if applicable), how you think the story's going so far, character development, any symbolism you think you've found, or simply any means of improvement you'd like to suggest. I'm open to everything!**

…**wow, this is a long AN. I'll shut up now. xD**

**Thanks for your time everyone. Please review if you can spare 2 more minutes. **


	8. Saving Grace

**Saving Grace**

A tense scene is to be found down one of Fuchsia City's quiet back alleys, where two teenagers silently stare at the struggling sphere on the ground, glinting in the late morning sun with every shaky squirm. Inside of the red and white poke ball, a baby Poliwag fights, desperate to regain the freedom it has barely even experienced in its short life.

"Come on, come on…" the diminutive Zoe whispers with bated breath, her hands to her mouth from tension. At her feet, Mocha the Minccino teeters about happily, seemingly unaware of the painful bruise on her ankle, and a few feet away, an exhausted Dylan Cameron balances awkwardly, resting against his sole crutch and keeping his damaged leg as elevated as he can.

The poke ball's struggling gradually begins to decrease with its captive's energy, and eventually slows to a complete stop. The light between the two hemispheres slowly fades out, and the capsule emits its trademark noise;

'Toing!'

"Oh! Yay!" Zoe squeals, dashing over to the capsule and bending down to pick it up, "I've actually caught a pokémon!"

"Minn-a-minn-a-minn…" Mocha peeps, spinning around jovially, while Zoe muses about her recent success.

"It was a little… easy though, don't you think?" She murmurs, staring pensively at the capsule in her dainty hands.

"Well… it _was_ a baby Poliwag, after all" Dylan reasons, limping over to her and also staring at the same capsule, "It shouldn't have been too hard to catch, right?"

"Heh, I guess so…" Zoe smiles at Dylan, stowing the shiny capsule away in her bag, "I think we should get out of here now, though. I didn't like the look on the mother Poliwhirl's face when-"

But during her sentence, the ground begins to shake ominously…

"Aah!" Zoe trembles, stumbling on the unsteady ground and falling into Dylan, who strains to support her extra weight – although minuscule – with his arm, "What was that?!"

"J-just a ground tremor, don't worry!" Dylan tries to reassure the tiny Zoe, "Nothing to be scared of, I'm sure"

But this time, the ground shakes much more fiercely, and something enormous bursts from the water!

"Agh!" Zoe screams again, petrified and practically jumping onto Dylan.

"WHOA!" Dylan cries, almost getting bowled over by the combination of Zoe launching herself onto him and the surge of water that has just been thrown at him, "What the?!"

But Zoe's face is completely stiff from terror, staring unblinkingly at the beast that has just burst from the lake. Dylan turns to face it, and his face drops. "…oh. Crap"

Towering over the pair of them from the water is a magnificent, brutally scaly beast of _at least_ twelve feet in length. Clad from head to tail in shining blue and yellow body armour, with a head crest large and sharp enough to impale someone, the mighty creature known as Gyarados stares them both down, leering menacingly.

"M-m-miiin…?" Mocha gulps, slowly tiptoeing forwards to confront the thing. She's utterly terrified, but willing to do all she can to protect her trainer, how little that may be.

"NO Mocha!" Zoe gasps, fumbling in her bag for Mocha's poke ball, "You get back here! You can't fight this one!"

Mocha disappears in a dulled flash of crimson light, and the Gyarados grunts, looking around for its 'opponent'. After a few moments of searching, it notices that there are no pokémon for it to attack. But two people. It imagines they'll do nicely.

"Gruuaaaaaaaaaaaaaghhhh!" Gyarados roars, blowing the pair back and completely soaking them in a sickening combination of water and saliva.

"G-get outta here, Zoe!" Dylan pleas, fighting to lower her back to the ground, "I'm screwed, but you can still run! It only needs one target!"

"No way, I am _not_ just leaving you here!" Zoe cries, hanging onto him from behind, "There's no way that I'm running away and letting you become Gyarados food over a Poliwag! No way!"

"But you'll be killed too!" Dylan cries, wiping fluids from his eyes. "Please, just go!"

"Sorry, but I'm staying!" Zoe insists, stubbornly refusing to move, "I guess we'll just find out who tastes better, huh?!"

Meanwhile, the Gyarados has tired of waiting for its opponent to attack. Narrowing its eyes at the pair, it rears up its mighty head, opens its gaping mouth and starts charging up an impossibly bright beam of light!

"I-I'm sorry for getting you into this, Dylan" Zoe concedes, shielding her eyes against the sheer brightness of the Gyarados' attack.

"It's OK, Zoe" Dylan squints, straining with her extra weight attached to his back, "If I'm gonna die untimely, it might as well be exciting. And hey, what could be better than getting blasted off the face of the earth in a huge explosion?"

"Heh, true…" Zoe giggles, holding him tighter. "Well…" she hesitates, inevitable tears forming in her eyes, "Thanks for being here with me, Dylan"

"No problem" he chuckles weakly, and the pair huddle together as close they can, as if it'll make a difference. Gyarados' Hyper Beam has charged fully now, a huge sphere of energy about twice the size of its head. It buckles up, ready to fire, and

"Attack!"

From out of nowhere, another dark silhouette appears, striking the Gyarados from the underside of its head!

Gyarados moans in pain, and its Hyper Beam discharges, sending a blast of light arcing skywards!

Both Dylan and Zoe carefully peer out from behind their arms after realising that they haven't been evaporated by Hyper Beam, only to find a small, brownish pokémon repelling the monster!

"Yeah, good goin' Ataro!" A voice roars from somewhere. Both teens look around, perplexed, and another girl runs towards them, commanding her pokémon.

"Give it a Triple Kick!" she yells, and Ataro leaps into action once again, taking off from the ground with an energetic spin and striking the Gyarados three times with its outstretched legs. Gyarados groans again, flailing from its injuries, and Ataro lands nimbly on the ground, balancing dexterously on its head with its feet in the air, poised for offence.

"What is that…?!" Zoe asks, stunned.

"T-that's a Hitmontop" Dylan stammers, "They're pretty _rare_, I think. Damn, look at it go!"

Gyarados leaps from the water, landing clumsily on the ground beside the lake, and swings its tail from behind in an act of pure rage. The agile Hitmontop, however, deftly evades the heavy appendage by somersaulting clean over it, striking the Gyarados with its foot once again as it does so.

"Great job, Ataro!" its trainer calls, pumping her fist, "Now, see if you can use some of those rocks!"

"Monnnn-top!" Ataro shouts, smashing a nearby boulder into pieces by repeatedly smacking it with its extended feet. The pieces of rock are then propelled towards the Gyarados with some serious force, hitting it in the side of the head multiple times!

"Quick, now Dig while it's stunned!" the trainer calls, and Ataro complies, spinning to burrow a large hole in the ground!

Wincing, Gyarados shakes its head to try and dislodge the headache that Ataro's rocky assault has no doubt caused, and notices the obvious gaping hole in the ground. An idea forming in its mind, Gyarados slams its heavy tail into the ground, sending tremors throughout and no doubt causing serious damage to the subterranean Ataro!

"OK, bad idea!" its trainer admits, raising her hand to her forehead, "Sorry there Ataro! Counter with a Drill Run!"

Nothing happens for a few moments, but Ataro soon bursts from the ground, leaping over Gyarados and assailing it with its feet yet again!

Still in the process of spinning, Ataro burrows back into the ground, readying its next attack. Gyarados looks around confused once more, and motions to slam the ground again, but it's too slow this time, as Ataro strikes again, bursting from the ground and kicking Gyarados twice in the face!

This process repeats itself a few more times, with Ataro practically swimming through the ground and attacking Gyarados efficiently each time, and all Gyarados can do is flail uselessly, trying and failing to grab Ataro in its gaping jaws with each repeated somersault. Meanwhile, Dylan and Zoe are just standing there, nothing short of astonished at this amazing event, and Ataro's trainer remains cool and composed, brushing a stray curl of hair from her eyes.

Ataro buries itself in the ground once again, and it appears that Gyarados has had enough of these intruders. Frustrated, the exhausted beast hatches another idea. It leans over one of the dozen or so holes, and fires a high pressured Hydro Pump into it!

Pressure builds, and builds, but Gyarados refuses to give up, blasting more and more water into the ground. Eventually, its hard work comes to fruition, and the water is pumped out of all of the other holes, flushing Hitmontop out with it and twenty metres into the air!

"It's OK Ataro, use gravity to your advantage and hit it with a Mega Kick!" the trainer shouts, still cool as a cucumber.

Blasted upwards by the aftermath of the Hydro Pump, the weary Hitmontop rights itself in the air, cartwheeling out of the flume of water and falling towards the preoccupied Gyarados, who hasn't realised that its tactic had worked.

Ataro focuses, extending its leg and aiming its plunge carefully. Meanwhile, Gyarados is completely none the wiser as Ataro's leg crashes painfully into its skull!

The ground cracks beneath the collision and Gyarados is knocked out _cold_ from the assault, with Ataro dismounting with a stylish pirouette, landing at its trainer's side.

"Great job, Ataro!" she congratulates her Hitmontop, signalling for a high five. Ataro responds by flipping in the air, receiving the high five in mid jump, and landing smoothly on its feet.

"OK…" she sighs, turning to face the two stunned teens, "What do we got here?"

Surveying the two, she folds her arms in a pensive fashion and stares them down. She's clad in a bright red jacket, with a light blue short sleeved shirt underneath it and darker denim shorts, a necklace with what looks like a fang hanging from it around her neck, heavy duty work boots and chest length tawny hair, ending in curls.

"So" she surmises, her dark eyes flashing. "Here we have two rookie trainers, one of whom is _crippled,_ and the other is using the cripple as some sorta climbing frame. They're out on what's likely their first pokémon expedition, without a pokémon to be seen, and they appear to be covered in saliva. How'm I doing so far, numbskulls?"

"…pretty good" Dylan gasps, her question shocking him out of his stunned silence.

"B-but we did have a pokémon…" Zoe falters, slowly climbing off of Dylan's shoulders and searching in her bag, "Come on out again, Mocha. Everything's safe now!"

Mocha reappears in a flash of crimson light, and spins around, confused. She's not sure why her trainer and her trainer's friend are all wet and sticky, and she doesn't know who the new strange person and pokémon are on the other side of her, either. Perplexed, Mocha just decides to sit down and mumble to herself.

"OK, I stand corrected" the girl laughs, "You guys bring a baby Minccino with you for safety. Great call, kids"

"She's four months old…" Zoe sighs, her head drooping with self-reproach.

"You wanna… stop insulting us for a moment and tell us who you are?" Dylan requests, not wanting the remains of his dignity tarnished any further by a complete stranger.

"Heh" the girl chuckles, looking Dylan square in the eye, "Alright then. Name's Steph, and I'm the pokémon ranger 'round these parts. Now, you guys wanna explain your dumbassery just then?"

"I-I wanted to catch a Poliwag…" Zoe falters, digging in her bag again and extracting Poliwag's capsule, "And I saw a whole bunch of them here, so I got Mocha to weaken it, like you're supposed to, and threw the poke ball, and everything went better than expected! But then-"

"Got it!" Steph the pokémon ranger interrupts with a hand signal, "Afterwards, you somehow manage to piss off a pre-menstrual Gyarados, _withdraw_ your only means of defending yourself, and expect to come out of it alive?"

"Yeah. Things didn't really go as planned…" Zoe mumbles, ashamed of herself. "Wait, pre-men…" She murmurs, momentarily bemused, "I-It's a girl?"

"Yeah, you can tell by the whiskers" Dylan explains, pointing to the comatose Gyarados' white whiskers. "Males have blue ones, y'see"

"Ohh…" Zoe understands, "So the Poliwhirl disappearing, and this Gyarados appearing in her place… was sort of like… one mother pleading to another?"

"Looks like" Dylan agrees, "The Poliwhirl knew she couldn't handle your Mocha's attacks, so she brought in reinforcements, I guess?"

"Feh. Should've just stayed in the kitchen, if you ask me" Steph snorts, folding her arms.

Dylan busts out laughing at this self-targeting chauvinistic response, "OH! That was brilliant!"

And Zoe simply gets confused once again, "W-what?"

"S-she just made a joke about women belonging in the kitchen!" Dylan gasps, doubled over, "Nicely done, I gotta admit!"

"O-oh…" Zoe murmurs, not exactly approving of their vulgar behaviour, but not wanting to make a scene over it either.

"Looks like I've got a fan" Steph remarks, glancing over at the slowly recovering Dylan. "So!" she enunciates, bringing out a notepad, "Am I to assume you two were _just_ being idiots?"

"Noooo…" Zoe mumbles slowly, ready to insist that they were just there to catch a Poliwag and be gone, but Dylan notices that notepad, and puts two and two together.

"Yes! We were being idiots!" He blurts out, doing his best to silence Zoe, "We didn't know there'd be Gyarados in this lake, and we just came here to get a Poliwag! It didn't go too well!"

Steph smirks at him, and flips her notepad shut, "Good answer, kid. I guess I won't have to charge you _this_ time"

"…thanks" Dylan stammers gratefully, now shivering from a combination of worn off adrenaline and being drenched in saliva, "We're kinda… broke, so it would've been hard to pay you"

"Good thing I'm here then, huh?" Steph exclaims, pocketing her notepad again, "Otherwise you'd be broke _and_ broken, heh"

"…yeah" Dylan deadpans, he and Zoe turning away, "Thanks for your help today. You really… helped"

"S-so where are we going now, Dylan?" Zoe shivers, hooking herself under his good arm for support once again.

"I-I dunno…" Dylan mutters, lost, "Maybe an inn'll put us up for the night if we wash some dishes or something…"

The pair slowly begins to trudge off towards the uneven paths towards town, and Steph sighs with exasperation in the background, "…how broke is broke?"

"Very" Dylan replies bluntly, "You got any money on you, Zo?"

"Umm…" Zoe hesitates, rummaging through her bag for her purse and peering inside it, prying the clasp open one handed by dextrously manipulating three of her fingers, "I've got… this cute little picture of a Dustox?"

More clever manipulation has her grabbing the picture and dropping her purse back into her bag. "Look, isn't it adorable?" She giggles bashfully, showing Dylan the picture of a Chibi styled Dustox, with predictably huge eyes and a silly looking C shaped smile.

"I-I don't think we'll be able to buy anything with this, though…" Zoe falters, stowing the crumpled piece of paper back in her bag, "So it looks like we'll have to start training nice and early, huh?"

"Easier said than done, heh" Dylan chuckles, wincing as his one healthy foot hits a cobblestone at a bad angle, "You've got pokémon that can fight. I've got boxes full of babies…"

"Ohh, good point…" Zoe falters, "Well, tomorrow, let's see if we can find one for you, yeah?"

Dylan's response is interrupted by Steph, who interjects with, "Hey, wait a sec?"

"Hunh?" he grunts, peering behind him and noticing her and her Hitmontop catching up to them, "What's wrong now?"

"You've got boxes full of pokémon, yet you aren't using them?" Steph queries, raising a cynical eyebrow, "How come?"

"It's… a lONg story" Dylan mumbles, almost tripping on the unsteady ground, "S-sorry Zo"

"It's alright" Zoe smiles weakly, straining to support his bulk with her tiny frame, "We'll get there…"

"So you're just gonna leave me hangin'?!" Steph cries, "After I saved your guys' asses, too?"

"Sorry…" Zoe mumbles, taking one more step forwards, "But this is heavy work, and it takes a lot of effort. Telling stories would just make things take longer… y'know?"

"Argh, fine!" Steph groans, "Ataro!"

"Hitmon!" Ataro cries, springing to attention.

"Get him to the poke centre, quick as you can!" she commands.

"Poke centre?" Dylan asks, perplexed, "Why th-"

But his query is soon stopped short, as Ataro the Hitmontop zooms past like a blur of blue and brown and snatches him from the ground effortlessly, "WHOA!"

His crutch clatters to the floor, and Dylan can now barely register the speed at which he's moving, with Ataro acrobatically leaping over obstacles of all sorts – some of them being several metres in height – to take him to the poke centre in the distance.

"Wow…" Zoe sighs, watching them disappear off into the distance, where the poke centre itself is just a red and white blob among many others.

"…so" Steph propositions to Zoe now that Dylan's out of earshot, "You're not busy helping your guy any more. Care to spill the proverbial beans?"

"Umm… I'm not really good at explaining stuff" Zoe dodges nervously, picking up Dylan's dropped crutch and holding onto it for him, "Dylan's a lot better at these kinda things than me. C-could you ask him, please?"

Steph's mouth tightens, and she narrows her eyes, only causing Zoe's apprehension towards this – in her mind – threatening young woman to climb to even greater heights. Her blue-grey eyes meet up with Steph's dark brown shakily, and she can barely keep contact with that well trained stare of hers.

"S-sorry…" Zoe squeaks, flinching away from Steph's glare. As casually as she can, she stumbles across Fuchsia's uneven paths towards the distant poke centre, resisting with all her might the urge to turn back and confront those eyes staring into the back of her head.

"Poor kid…" Steph mutters inwardly, placing her hands on her hips and watching the tiny Zoe tremble off past her, "She's completely oblivious to the world. It's gonna eat her alive…"

Another smirk tugs at the corner of her mouth, and her dark eyes flash mischievously. "This should be fun!" she snickers, and jogs after Zoe.

* * *

"C'mon, kid!" Steph sighs, rolling her eyes in frustration as she watches Zoe attempt to scrabble up a tall ledge just outside the poke centre. One that Steph had pretty much walked up…

"B-but I'm little!" Zoe gasps, trying and failing to swing her leg around the edge of the dusty verge, and very conscious of the fact that she's wearing a skirt. Long or not, it's exposing more of her legs than she's comfortable with.

"Didn't stop me" Steph huffs, folding her arms. "I've been climbing stuff like this since I was smaller than you are now" she adds, and then mutters "Which is _saying_ something…" to herself.

"Hunh?" Zoe stammers, noticing Steph's lips move but not hearing what came out of them. "Sorry, what did you say?"

"Ohh, nothing, don't worry" Steph snickers, kneeling down to 'encourage' her, "C'monnn, I've seen eight year olds climb this thing with no trouble!"

"They must be really good at climbing!" Zoe enthuses obliviously, sliding a little back down the verge again, "But… do you think you could help me up, please?"

A few metres away, Dylan and Ataro can be seen, both of them completely unaware of Zoe's situation. Ataro has taken the time away from his trainer for some peaceful meditation, while the lazy Dylan has simply fallen asleep waiting.

"Heh… didn't know you could do it _that_ way…" he mutters in his sleep, reaching out to an invisible object with his good hand whilst balancing precariously in one of many plastic lawn chairs that have been placed outside the poke centre, with the foot of his good leg keeping him anchored. A random shiver has his whole body twitching for a moment, and that slight movement is all that's needed for his foot to slide from underneath the table, subsequently tipping the chair over and sending him crashing to the ground!

"Nngh! What the?!" a stunned Dylan gasps, having been awoken from falling into a crumpled heap. "…oh. Heh" he chuckles, realising that there's a tipped chair on top of him, "Must've fell"

He negotiates his way back to his foot, and notices the tiny Zoe still having trouble managing the verge, and Steph standing above her, doing nothing to help.

"Wha?" he mutters, confused and somewhat disdained by Steph's behaviour, "Why isn't she helping?"

"You've gotta learn to help yourself sometimes, kid…" Steph rolls her eyes, displeased at Zoe's ineptitude, "If you can't help yourself, you're just asking the world to come crashing down on your like a tonna bricks. The world's full of horrible people, kid, and-"

"And if you can't help those who _need_ it, you're just as bad as them" Dylan interrupts curtly, hopping over towards them. "Just how long were you planning on leaving her here?"

"'Til she can climb up" Steph deadpans, crossing her arms and subjecting Dylan to another one of her sharp stares, "Helping someone is the easy way out. They need to learn to do stuff by themselves, or-"

"So you learned to do all of this by yourself, huh?" Dylan challenges, shakily kneeling down on his one good leg to offer Zoe a hand, "You OK, Zo?"

"I am now!" she smiles, accepting the help with a slight giggle and scrambling up the dusty verge at last, "Wow, that was _really _high!"

"Yeah it was, huh?" he empathises, turning his stare back to a seething Steph. "So _did_ you learn it all by yourself? No one helping you?"

"No…" Steph growls, glaring at him, "But that's not the point!"

"No, it really is!" Dylan counters, receiving his crutch from Zoe again, "I get what you're trying to do, I really do. But there's times when people can't just do stuff by themselves, and need help. Would you chuck a kid in a pool and expect him to swim?"

"Well, no, but…" Steph hesitates, her confident façade dented by this logical assail.

"Who taught you to swim, Steph?" Dylan asks, glancing towards her.

"M-my dad…" she mumbles, averting her gaze.

"And did he help you when you needed it, or just tell you to get on with it?" Dylan analyses, not noticing her avoidance.

"Y-yeah, OK, you win" Steph dodges. A glance at her watch gives her a sudden brainwave, however; "Let's… get some lunch, huh? You can explain today's dumbassery"

Again hiding her emotions, she turns away from the pair and heads off in the direction of the poke centre.

"Lunch?" Dylan queries with a raised eyebrow, "Where?"

"Poke centre. Duh" Steph groans, her cockiness returning full force, "Man, you guys know _nothing_ about being pokémon trainers, huh?"

"Nope!" Zoe chimes obliviously, causing Steph to roll her eyes. "I'll explain inside…" she sighs, and the three make their way into Fuchsia City's poke centre.

"OK!" Steph announces loudly, barging through the slidey doors, "This, _kids_, is a poke centre!"

She waits for the others to arrive through the same doors, and spins around theatrically with her arms raised, "This is where _people_ do pokémon related crap!"

The attending poke centre nurse raises her eyebrow begrudgingly at Steph's candour.

"We know what a poke centre is…" Dylan groans, staring at her, "Four Island just doesn't get a lotta tourism"

"Ohh, so that's where you yokels are from?" Steph laughs airily, throwing a towel at the pair of them, "I was wondering, cause you don't seem to know anything about trainer customs. They do have a-"

"Yes…" Dylan mutters, attempting to clean his face one handed and rolling his eyes at being called a yokel, "They have a poke centre in Four Island. And we're not idiots, OK? Please, stop treating us like we are…"

"Fine, fine…" Steph shrugs off his complaint ambivalently, approaching the main counter and casually addressing the poke centre nurse, "Hey. How's it going?"

"Hello Steph …" the nurse groans, less than pleased at her arrival. But she forces herself to pep up, "H-how may I serve you today?!"

"Ohh, nothing thanks" Steph smirks, causing the nurse's face to erode into an annoyed frown again, "I'm just showin' these Four Island hicks what a poke centre looks like"

"I'll have you know that Four Island has a very nice poke centre, Steph …" the nurse sighs, exasperated at the girl's ignorance, "Sure, it's a bit smaller than this one, and they don't get broadband out there, but other than that, it's pretty much the same, OK?"

"You've… been to Four Island?" Zoe asks, both surprised and delighted at the fact that other people have actually visited her quaint little island.

"Ohh, yes!" the nurse cries, suddenly full of enthusiasm, "I used to visit my grandmother there when I was just a wee girl!"

"Wow, really?!" Zoe squeals, leaving Dylan to stand on his own power and approaching the counter, "What's your Grandma's name? I might know her!"

"O-oh…" the nurse withdraws, her gaze misting over, "My grandmother… passed away quite a while ago, dear…"

"Aw, I'm so sorry to hear that!" Zoe gasps, raising her hands to her mouth, "I-I didn't know, I'm sorry!"

"It's perfectly OK, sweetie, you weren't to know!" the nurse says, smiling warmly at Zoe to try and stop her from falling to pieces, "Tell me, is the old man still there?"

"The old man?" Both she and Dylan remark at once, and Dylan continues with "You mean… the Day Care man?"

"Why yes!" the nurse exclaims, "Ohh, that's lovely news! It was because of him and his teaching that I went into the nursing career!"

"N-not breeding?" Zoe asks, confused.

"Ohh, no dear, I don't have the patience for pokémon breeding" she chuckles bashfully, "But I have the utmost respect for anyone who can pour so much love and attention into a pokémon egg!"

"It's so amazing to watch one hatch!" Zoe cries, placing both hands on the counter and jumping about from excitement, "They kinda… wiggle about for a little while, and then pieces of shell fly off randomly, and then it's just like 'BAM!' and next thing you know, there's a baby pokémon staring at you, looking all cute and huggable!"

"Ohh, they must be so fun to play with…" the nurse fantasises, glancing upwards and smiling to herself.

"Oh yes, very much!" Zoe enthuses, "They're normally really tired when they've just hatched, so they look around for their mother, because they just want something to hug and fall asleep with, y'know? If you're the first thing they see, you become their mother, and they'll pretty much never leave your side! It's so… so wonderful!"

"Oh gosh, aren't you lovely?" the nurse beams at her. "Steph, you could really learn some manners from this girl here" she adds, glancing to Steph and causing her to glare back. "What's your name, honey?"

"I-I'm Zoe! A-and this is Dylan!" Zoe giggles, pointing to him.

"Hey…" Dylan murmurs, feeling rather out of place in this whole situation.

"Well it's good to meet the both of you!" the nurse coos, "Now tell me Steph, why did I have to wait for your friends to introduce themselves?"

"They're not my friends…" Steph mutters, staring darkly at the nurse, "They're just a pair of idiots who appeared here in Fuchsia, instantly got into trouble by upsetting a wild Gyarados, and forced me to stop them from getting eaten, OK?!"

"And you're still helping them because…?" The nurse asks, smirking.

"Cause they're broke and helpless, alright?" Steph groans with a shrugging gesture, letting her arms flop down to her sides to illustrate her frustration.

"See? Looks like you _do_ have a heart!" the nurse giggles once again, almost for the sole intention of provoking her.

"DO not!" Steph shouts, enraged. "I'm getting lunch now, OK? If you guys want feeding, you better come with, like now!"

With that notion, she storms off into the room behind the flappy doors to the right of the poke centre's counter, leaving Dylan and Zoe more than just slightly bemused.

"Ohh, don't worry guys, she's just doing it for show" the nurse laughs airily, "Food's free for trainers and their pokémon"

"Ooh, that's good news!" Zoe exclaims, "Come on, Dylan, let's go get some food!"

And Zoe helps Dylan through the flappy doors to a grand cafeteria, where three other nurses are busy attempting to control the lunchtime rush, hastily preparing mixed meals – both human and pokémon – for the unruly masses that surround them. A scene of utter chaos by most people's standards.

"Man, you'd think they've never eaten" Dylan gawks, staring open mouthed at the beldam.

"I guess it makes sense…" Zoe says, helping Dylan towards a table, "I'd imagine some of these people have been out travelling for days, and good food would be hard to find out there, huh?"

"Good point" Dylan chuckles, falling uncomfortably into the seat Zoe has offered him, "Hey, why're you leaving me here? I could help with the food or something"

"Nooo, don't be silly!" Zoe appeases him, "You need your one good hand to walk, and those crowds over there will make things tricky for you!"

"Yeah, but-"

"_But_ we need someone to save a spot, because it looks like they fill up quickly here" Zoe justifies, pointing to the already swollen queues, "So I'll get us both some food, OK?"

"OK…" Dylan sighs, reluctantly conceding, "I'll sit here and be useless…"

"Aww, you're not useless, Dylan!" Zoe sympathises, reaching around and hugging him, "Don't think like that, OK? Remember that the most important piece on a chessboard is the one that does the least"

"Yeah, but the most useful is the one that does the most" Dylan counters, smirking.

"Ooh, touché!" Zoe giggles, "You're still useful though, don't you worry! Just like the King, you're an important placeholder on this metaphorical chessboard" she adds, tapping the lino floor with her foot, which just happens to be of the traditional black and white checkerboard pattern. "If you move, those surly knaves will surely invade our territory, and we will be left stranded!"

"You take these metaphors seriously, huh?" Dylan chuckles, ruffling her hair playfully.

"Yup!" Zoe chimes, "Now, I shall be your Queen, and fetch you the required provisions my lord!" she giggles, curtseying for good measure. "Any preference?"

"Food?" Dylan says with a light shrug, "If it's edible, that's all I really care about, eheh…"

"A fine choice, my lord!" Zoe enunciates, "I shall take my leave of you now. But I shall be but a moment, and return with a meal worthy of your King… liness" she finishes, before scurrying off and negotiating her way into the bustling queues.

"Excuse me… 'scuse me please!" her tiny voice squeaks amidst the rambunctious crowds, attempting to wade through the chaos with politeness alone. However, she makes little progress, because hungry stomachs don't listen to polite pleading, and Zoe's timid calls are left practically unheard.

"Damn line…" Steph huffs, a few places ahead of Zoe in the queue and immensely bored, "Seriously, I swear the whole frickin' city's in – oh Arceus…"

She glances over her shoulder and notices Zoe trying to squeeze through the crowds, having no luck despite her tiny and flexible stature.

"Dammit" she sighs, considering going back to help Zoe when she's so close to receiving food. She glances back over towards the bored Dylan at the table, and then to Zoe again.

"I could get food for him…" she muses, "But wait, the other kid knows what he wants, so I can't get the wrong food, or it'll backfire. Ugh…"

Hesitantly, she stretches through the crowds and extends her arm. "Hey kid!" she shouts to Zoe, grabbing her attention, "Grab my hand!"

"Oh, umm…" Zoe hesitates, accepting the hand and being pulled forcefully through the queue, much to the disdain of the people in between them, "Thaaaaaaaanks!"

"Hey, what gives?!" A teenage boy complains, being knocked to the side by the sheer force of Steph's tugging.

"She's with me, so you can shut it!" Steph hollers, silencing the boy with a glare that could've turned him to stone. "And don't say I never help ya" she sniggers, positioning Zoe in front of her.

"Thanks for that!" Zoe exclaims, nursing a strained shoulder joint, "You really-"

"What food's he want?" Steph interrupts, getting straight to the point.

"Wha?" Zoe murmurs, confused for a moment, "Oh, Dylan? He's not picky"

"He isn't, huh?" Steph grumbles, lamenting having gone to the trouble of grabbing Zoe for nothing, "That's _great_…"

"Yeah, and now I can get him his food faster thanks to you, Steph!" Zoe cries obliviously, reaching for a hug. But a sharp stare from Steph gives her better ideas.

"Y-you don't like hugs?" she falters, retracting her arms again, "…sorry there"

"I'll get the people food, you get the pokémon food, OK?" Steph orders, brushing the previous awkward conversation aside and getting back to the matter at hand.

"Ohh, sure thing!" Zoe exclaims, "What kind of food does your Hitmontop like?"

"Haven't figured that out yet" Steph lies, "I've only had him a short while"

"Ohh, you must be a really good trainer, then!" Zoe compliments honestly, "Because he seems to really trust you!"

"…thanks" Steph raises an eyebrow, wondering how this girl can be so sickeningly polite.

"Let's see, he's a Fighting type…" Zoe muses, thinking laterally, "They usually have high Attack, and you were using some pretty offensive strategies earlier. So, assuming he has an appropriate nature, I reckon he'd like Cheri Berries?" She guesses, piling some into a bowl with pellets for Ataro.

"…dammit" Steph mutters under her breath, "How the hell did she know that?"

"Sorry, what did you say?" Zoe asks, not hearing.

"…good idea!" Steph evades, scooping mashed potatoes onto two plates, followed by some sausages.

"Mocha loves Pecha berries…" Zoe muses, filling up a bowl with a mixture of those and pellets, "and what about Poliwag? I've just got it…"

"It?" Steph queries, "You're calling your pokémon an 'it'?"

"Well, I haven't checked yet" Zoe justifies. "I normally would have by now, but that Gyarados attacked us and, well…"

"Gotcha" Steph deadpans, drowning the food on the plates in gravy, "Just try some of everything and see what happens"

"Yeah, that works!" Zoe agrees, assorting several kinds of berries into a third bowl for Poliwag, "Do you have any other pokémon, Steph?"

"Nope" Steph says bluntly, although she's taken aback at Zoe's considerate gesture, "What about your guy… Dylan?"

"M-MY guy?!" she shrieks, stunned, "Ohhh, no no no, we're not like that!"

"Ohh, right" Steph laughs, "I just assumed you were, cause of how… _close_ you two are"

"No, _nothing_ like that!" Zoe murmurs, now blushing a faint pink. "Oh, and he hasn't got any on him" she explains, steering the topic back on track "I'm hoping that we can change that soon"

"Maybe now I can finally figure out what's going on here…" Steph mutters inwardly, although the one discovery has her… interested.

The girls collect their plates and head back to the table, where Dylan is fighting valiantly to keep two seats spare for them.

"C'mon dude, seriously!" he cries, prodding another boy with his crutch, "I've got a friend who's sitting there!"

"Well where is this friend, then?" the boy challenges, threatening to sit down on the seat next to him.

"Right here!" Steph roars, appearing in the nick of time and sliding smoothly between them. "You can go away now" the bluntly orders the young boy, who glares at her for a moment before reluctantly finding somewhere else to sit.

"Oh…" Dylan falters, "I kinda was saving that seat for Zoe, but…"

"It's OK, she can just sit over there!" Steph announces, pointing to a lone seat at the far corner of the table.

"Ohh, but I-" Zoe responds, not too happy at the prospect of sitting one her own amidst a bunch of strangers. However, just as she turns to walk over to the seat with her three bowls of pokémon food, two girls who were sitting next to Dylan vacate their seats!

"Oh wow!" Zoe exclaims, snatching up the seat before anyone else can beaming, "That was convenient!"

"I'll say!" Dylan agrees, looking around for a third plate, "Hey Steph… where's Zoe's food?"

"Hunh?" Steph grunts through a mouthful of mash potato, "Ohh, damn, I mussa fawgot it"

Dylan raises his eyebrow suspiciously, but Zoe responds with a simple, "It's OK Dylan, I'll just go get me some!"

"Just get a plate, Zo. You can have half of mine" Dylan suggests.

"Ohh, but you need your food" Zoe objects, releasing Mocha and the newly caught Poliwag from their poke balls, "Want some food, guys?"

"Min-nah!" Mocha celebrates, raising her hands in the air, while Poliwag looks around worriedly, "Polll?"

"Aww, it's OK little one" Zoe coos, sliding a bowl in front of Poliwag gently, "Here you go, eat up!"

"You need your food too, Zo" Dylan insists, "And it'll take you forever to get through those queues again. Just go grab a plate… please?"

"Very well, my lord!" Zoe giggles, resuming her 'role' as Queen, "I shall happily share your provisions! But a moment!"

She dashes off again to acquire a plate, leaving Dylan and Steph alone for a moment.

"She's a weir' one" Steph swallows, releasing Ataro from his poke ball, "Pass that bowl, would you?"

"I know what you're doing" Dylan threatens, passing the blue bowl to her for Ataro. "Zoe may be naïve. Even I can tell. But she's also really nice. Painfully so. I don't want you corrupting her with your deception, got it?"

"What makes her so special?" Steph scoffs, placing the bowl on the ground for her Hitmontop, "She's just… a misfit"

"You don't seem all too keen to 'fit in' to this puzzle we call life now, do you?" Dylan analyses, referring to her behaviour and dress sense, "So how can you judge someone else who doesn't fit in?"

"Hey, this is a uniform, buddy!" Steph retorts, pointing her fork at him accusingly, "Don't you go-"

"Not the point" Dylan deadpans, looking at her blankly, "Point is, you're mocking someone for being different when you're pretty different yourself. Be nice, OK?"

"Fine…" Steph relents, angrily skewering a sausage on the end of her fork and tearing a chunk out of it.

"Good" Dylan mutters just as Zoe returns, holding a nice clean plate in her hands. "Hey again!" she chimes, "Did I miss anything"

"Nope" Dylan says, gesturing to his plate, "Take as much as you need, Zo. I'll be slow eating one handed anyways"

"Ohh, I won't take much…" Zoe laughs awkwardly, scooping a portion of the mash and one sausage onto her own plate. "And how are you two doing?" She fusses, peering down at Mocha and Poliwag.

"Min!" Mocha peeps, having finished hers already, while Poliwag is being a little choosier, awkwardly picking at its food.

"I know it's not Salveyo Weed, but give it a try, OK Poliwag?" she encourages. Poliwag simply blinks at her in response, still a little wary of all of these strange people.

"Aww, do you think you could help Poliwag out, Mocha?" Zoe asks, slicing her sausage up into pieces.

"Minnaminno?" Mocha replies, before picking up a couple of pellets and offering them to Poliwag herself.

"Shouldn't _you_ be doing that?" Steph asks, noticing Poliwag's reluctance to take food from Mocha.

"Oh, I should, yes" Zoe agrees, chewing up a piece of sausage, "Right after I finish this food, I'm going to give it a shot"

"Suit yourself…" Steph mumbles. "Oh, I can _finally_ ask now!" she remembers, glancing towards Dylan, "You've got pokémon, but you're not using them?"

"Uhh, yeah…" Dylan muffles through a mouthful of mash potato. With a swallow, he carries on, "Zoe and I are pokémon breeders. We're on a field exam, though"

"Which is…?"

"Well, we were told to pick six pokémon, right?"

"Uh-huh"

"And then told to find each of those six in the wild. Study them and crap, too" Dylan finishes explaining with a bite of sausage. "I had someone 'help' me pick mine, and now I'm screwed, 'cause most of them are pretty rare, see?"

"Gotcha" Steph surmises, nodding thoughtfully, "So… what're these six pokémon?"

"Wingull, Voltorb, Phanpy, Diglett, Dratini and… Cleffa" Dylan sighs, not quite able to bring himself to a reserved chuckle.

"Ahh, I can see the problem" Steph nods, "Three of those are native to Kanto, though, so they shouldn't be too hard. Hell, you can catch Dratini right here in Fuchsia!"

"Hnng?!" Dylan splutters, almost choking on some mash potato, "R-really?!"

"Yeah, at the Safari Zone" Steph explains, "They're rare, but they're there. You'll need some money though"

"Ahh damn" Dylan mutters, his hopes fading again, "That'll be tricky"

"Well, you shouldn't really be charging about anyway" Steph advises, "Not in your state"

"I only did today cause it was the only way they'd let me outta hospital" Dylan laughs with mirth, "I _hated_ those damn dresses they forced me to wear…"

"I see…" Steph mutters, turning her attention to Zoe, "And what about you?"

"M-me?" Zoe stammers, "W-what did I do?"

"Your six pokémon?"

"Ohh, right… I've only got four to find. Poliwag, Audino, Minccino and Pachirisu"

"And you're halfway done already? Have you got it easier for any reason?"

"Cause she started later than me" Dylan interjects, not wanting Steph to say something insulting.

"Fine…" Steph mutters, "Yeah, you're gonna have to travel a lot, kid. Poliwag's the only one of those native to Kanto"

"I know, don't worry!" Zoe smiles, trying to tempt Poliwag with a Rawst Berry, "Oh, and I haven't found Minccino in the wild yet. I bred Mocha myself"

"So this is how you guys know about natures and stuff, and what it's like to see an egg hatch?" Steph queries, "Cause you're breeders?"

"Yip!" Zoe chimes, finally succeeding in getting the hungry Poliwag to eat the berry, "…uh oh"

Poliwag starts retching, and dashes about madly, appalled by the Rawst Berry's bitterness.

"What's wrong?" Steph smirks, already knowing.

"Poliwag doesn't like Rawst Berries!" Zoe gasps, "Take cover!"

"Take cover?" Steph laughs, noticing Zoe hide behind her chair the best she can, "Don't be dumb!"

She stands up from her chair and folds her arms, looking at the queasy Poliwag, "It's not like it's gonna expl-"

"POLLLLIIIII!"

Poliwag couldn't hold it in any longer, and ended up forcefully spewing a sickly combination of water, bile, and chewed up berry. Unfortunately for Steph, she picked the wrong place to stand, getting the entire upper half of her body covered in the slime!

"Ugh…" she groans wiping the goo from her face the best she can, "That was unpleasant…"

"Oh! Oh gosh!" Zoe cries, dashing to her feet again "I'm so sorry!"

"Yeah. Whatever" Steph deadpans, quickly becoming conscious of her shirt, which has now turned see through thanks to being wet.

"Wow, you sure timed that wr-" Dylan begins, struggling to hold in his laughter at first. His eyes start to bulge when he turns to face Steph, and sees through her now transparent shirt, "…nng!"

"Oi you, quit starin'!" A mortified Steph hollers, forcing his face away and covering her visible undergarments with the other, "Unless you wanna end up back in hospital, that is!"

But despite her best efforts, her embarrassment shows on her face in the form of a crimson tinge across the bridge of her nose, and laughter starts to build.

"D-dammit…" she stammers bashfully, and charges off back into the main poke centre with the aim of getting a shower.

"…oops!" Zoe squeaks, picking up Poliwag and hugging it, "I'm so sorry, Poliwag. I didn't know about the berries…"

"Poliii…" Poliwag glugs, happy now that it's stopped throwing up, but still unused to all this strange attention.

"Well that escalated quickly" Dylan chuckles, dragging himself to his feet, "Reckon we should find her?"

"I think we should leave it for a little while" Zoe suggests, "Cause she's all covered in goo, and probably went off to go get a shower or something"

"Good point" Dylan agrees, "Well, what next? There's still half a day left"

"Early night?" Zoe shrugs, helping him get his bag back on, "We've got a lot of work to do if we're going to afford tickets to the Safari Zone!"

"How much are they?" Dylan asks, as they make their way back out of the cafeteria.

"I've no idea" Zoe says, "But they sound pretty expensive!"

"Now we've just gotta find somewhere to _sleep_" Dylan sighs, with he and Zoe approaching the counter of the poke centre. "Don't suppose you know where we could find somewhere to sleep for the night, do you?" he asks the nurse as casually as he can.

"Umm, here?" she suppresses a laugh, "We offer free food and accommodation for travelling trainers. Usually for a maximum of one week, but we allow longer if circumstances permit"

"Ooh, that's convenient!" Zoe cries, elated, "So umm… how would one go about doing that?"

The nurse turns around, and simply grabs a key from one of the many hooks on the wall behind her. "Here you go!" she laughs, handing it to Zoe, "One room?"

The pair exchange a nervous glance, before Dylan finally utters, "…two, please"

"Okeydokey!" she chimes, also handing him a key. "Your rooms are 22B and 31A. Just go up the stairs and follow the numbers, dearies!"

"Thank youuu!" Zoe calls, she and Dylan approaching more deadly stairs. A fair amount of grumbling has them beaten, however, and Zoe insists on going past her room to help Dylan find his, despite his best efforts.

"Thanks for… helping me to my door, Zo. You've been a great help today" Dylan concedes, resting his crutch against said door and pulling her into a one armed hug.

"Aww, anyone would have!" Zoe giggles, "And besides, it's the least I could do for the man who saved my life!"

"I didn't save your life…" he chuckles modestly, "I just… got in the way, that's all"

"Sometimes that's a good thing" Zoe smiles, breaking the hug and floating back down the hallway. "See you tomorrow Dylan!"

"Sleep well, Zo!" Dylan calls after her, waving her goodbye before hopping into his room. Abandoning the thought of spending about an hour trying to get changed, he simply dumps his bag onto the floor, and collapses onto the bed with the intention of sleep.

"Saved her life, huh?" A freshly showered Steph mutters from down the other end of the hallway, having overheard the pair. "Interesting…"

"Hey, wait up!" she calls after Zoe, who's busy fumbling with her tiny bronze key, attempting to negotiate it into its lock.

"Wha?!" the timid Zoe gasps, spinning around in a fright and clutching her chest, "Oh, it's you Steph! You scared the life out of me!"

"Wow, you're easily spooked, huh?" Steph asks with mock interest, "Say, have you got a spare bed in there?"

"I… don't know" she announces happily, causing Steph to roll her eyes in the background, "Let's find out!"

She finally manipulates the stubborn key into the lock and twists it, revealing a mercifully empty room with three beds inside, bathed in the comfortable glow of late afternoon sun.

"Still a bit early to be getting to sleep…" Zoe muses, wandering into the quaint little room and looking around, "But it's nice and empty, huh?"

"Well I can't go anywhere" Steph mutters, gesturing to the bright pink dressing gown she's been forced to borrow and grimacing at it, "Courtesy of that Poliwag of yours…"

"I-I'm really sorry about that" Zoe says apologetically, "I didn't know about the Rawst berries…"

"It's alright, it was kinda my fault for getting in the way" Steph remarks, sitting down on the far bed and starfishing across it "Speaking of which…"

"Yeah?" Zoe queries, taking a seat on the further away bed and releasing her two pokémon onto it, and then lowering her bag gently to the floor.

"I heard Dylan saved your life by 'getting in the way'?" Steph asks, once again getting straight to the point.

"Ohh, you overheard?" Zoe murmurs, slightly embarrassed, "Well… we were on this ferry, and it crashed, tipping over sideways. I fell, and he grabbed me, but then we both fell, and he held me tight, making sure that he would cushion my fall"

"…wow, that's actually pretty noble of him" Steph remarks, impressed.

"Yeah…" Zoe says, nostalgic, "I can tell you the rest of the story if you want?"

"Alright then…" Steph smirks, digging into the pocket of her dressing gown and releasing Ataro from his poke ball. "There you go, Ataro. You can have the other bed, buddy"

"Hit-mon!" Ataro cries, bounding onto the middle bed with an acrobatic grace and sitting down for some more meditation.

"So, anyway…" Zoe announces, beginning to change into her nightclothes as she does so, "I thought I'd killed Dylan when I fell on him, because he wasn't breathing when I woke up. So another guy I know, Anthony, and I had to give him C…P…R or something and help him breathe again! And then-"

And thus the day comes to a slow end, with Zoe lulling Steph to sleep with her stories. After finally realising this, she realises that she has no one left to talk to, and snuggles up close to a fast asleep Mocha, slowly drifting off…

* * *

**Author's note:**

**Hey, you just read this**

**And this is crazy**

**But here's an update**

**So review maybe?**

…**sorry, I couldn't resist. :D**

**Wow, this took quite a while to get written down. I hope you like it though! It's night and lengthy to compensate for my absence over the past six or so weeks.**

**What does everyone think of Steph?**

**Oh, and congrats to 8Tyedye8 for correctly guessing that the dark shadow was indeed a Gyarados! Sorry though, no ninja Magikarp. :3**

**Logic ftw. :D**

**Also, some of you may be intrigued by my new fic, Wings. Give it a read if you're bored/interested. :D**

**Thanks for reading, everyone. **


	9. Forest Frustrations

**Chapter Nine: Forest Frustrations**

"Let's face it, we're lost!"

"No we're not"

"How can you say that? We've no idea where we are, or where anything is!"

"I know exactly where we are"

"Alright then…" A frustrated Kelvin sighs, slowing down to a halt and glaring irately at the stubborn Tess, "…where are we, Tess?"

"We're here" Tess deadpans, folding her arms and glancing back at him, "That's all that matters"

Clearly tension between the two is running rather high. Since the pair have successfully studied and caught a pair of Oddish between them two days back, Tess has charged North-east in the hopes of finding a Pidgey, as they all seem to have left route 15. However, despite Kelvin's careful calculations and constant beseeching of her to slow down, they have inevitably lost their way, as far as he is concerned, winding up in some forest or another between the cities of Fuchsia and Vermilion.

"And where is here?" Kelvin obliges her, the slightest hint of condescension to be found in his voice, "Like, an actual location?"

"Hell if I know" Tess mutters, kicking at a small tree root embedded in the ground, "Why's it so important that you know _exactly_ where we are? Planning on calibrating a GPS or something?"

"Ohh, I just thought it'd be nice if we didn't get lost in the Kanto wilderness, y'know…" Kelvin sighs, resting against a tree.

"I told you, we're not lost" Tess groans, rubbing at a scratch on her arm, caused by a painful altercation with a particularly obstinate oak tree that was 'in her way'. "And I never asked you to come along with me, did I?" She adds, "It's your own stupid fault for following after me like some helpless Mareep"

"I'm not helpless…" Kelvin balks, realising that he could've – and probably should've – gone off on his own path after they'd both caught their Oddishes, "Besides, we're supposed to be looking out for each other, y'know? In a _team?_"

"I've told you this already…" Tess grunts, charging forwards once again, "I work better alone. Don't need a team slowing me down"

"You can't do _everything_ by yourself, god dammit Tess!" Kelvin exclaims exasperatedly, "It's OK to ask someone for help every once in a while!"

"Ask away, then" Tess smirks, wondering exactly _who_ he would ask, seeing as their only company in this forest was the trees, and the fact that Kelvin – in her eyes – can't see the forest _for_ the trees, is a rather laughable situation.

"Seriously, though" She adds, feeling conversational for once, "I grew up on a farm, constantly surrounded by wild pokémon of all sorts. When you've got four older brothers teasing you all the time, a whiny father trying to have you join in on the family 'business' as he calls it, and an ignorant mother who's never there for you, you soon learn a bit of perspective. My perspective was a sort of crossroads, if you will. I had a choice; either obey my damn father and work on the farm, or do things my own way. And look at me now. Instead of following, I'm being followed. That's instantly better as far as I'm concerned, wouldn't you agree?"

"…would it kill you to ask for directions?" Kelvin mutters darkly, less than pleased at being compared with a Mareep of all things.

"Yes. Yes it really would" Tess grunts, peeling some bark away from a tree and tying it into intricate knots.

"Please, just do it!?" Kelvin shouts, startling a few Spearow from a nearby tree with his sheer volume.

"Alright then!" Tess cries, smiling mischievously – for reasons unknown to Kelvin.

"Hello, tree!" She laughs, walking up to the nearest one and tapping it on the side in a 'friendly' manner, "Would you please direct us to the nearest poke centre, or dwelling of any kind, for this poor lost dumbass here?" She finishes, gesturing to a fuming Kelvin with her other hand for scorning purposes. She rests her head inquisitively against the tree's trunk – a mock means of pretending to listen to its response – for a few moments, before speaking again.

"Oh, that's great news!" Tess continues with her faux enthusiasm, "Thank you, sir Tree. I really appreciate the directions, and I hope your wife gets better soon!"

"What is this…?" Kelvin mutters to himself, "Trees can't have wives…"

"OK, so the tree agrees with me that you're a dumbass" Tess mocks him further, pointing with both index fingers. "And it wants to let you know that I've been leading us the right way all this time. Happy now?"

"No, I'm not happy at all!" Kelvin fumes, "It's bad enough that you get me lost in this godforsaken forest, miles away from anywhere, but you've got the nerve to insult me like that?!"

"You were the one who followed me in here" Tess shoots him down once again, nimbly climbing into another tree and extracting a handful of Oran Berries from it, "'Sides, sir Tree also said that there's a family of Venonat just over that way" she adds, pointing off into the distance, "You're looking for them, right?"

"Nonsense!" Kelvin objects, "You expect me to believe that you can actually speak to trees?"

"Let's go find out then, huh?" Tess hints, sliding back down and handing him a few Oran Berries, "Here. Food"

"Fine, whatever…" Kelvin grunts, reluctantly stomping after her and glancing up towards the sky, where the small gaps in between the trees have him attempting to discern the time and weather, also serving as a means of calming him down. "Let's see, it looks like early afternoon. Plenty of cumulus… seems like the weather should remain pretty stable for the next few hours at least"

"Oh, hang on…" he falters, noticing a long strip of iron grey stratus cloud hovering near the horizon, "Those strati over there could mean possible rain…"

"You're arguing with yourself, and I'm crazy for talking to trees?" Tess' voice calls from several metres away, "C'mon kid, speed up! You might get lost if you don't keep up with me!"

"Hah! So you admit we're lost?" Kelvin announces, some confidence finally returning to his voice.

"No. I said _you_ might _get_ lost if you don't _keep up with me_. Big difference, dude"

"Damn her…" he grunts, stopping to bang his head against a tree a few times, "Could anyone be more frustrating than she?"

"You don't like getting proven wrong, huh?"

"…I wasn't proven wrong"

"You made a statement. I had evidence to the contrary. Is that not proof?"

"No, it's only evidence. Hence why it's CALLED evidence!"

"Proof enough for me. You should really work on those anger issues, kid"

"Argh!" Kelvin grumbles, frustrated beyond reason and kicking another nearby tree to show it, "Damn it all!"

But aside from causing absurd amounts of pain to his foot for kicking an especially sturdy tree, his anger otherwise proves fruitful when, of all things, a Venonat tumbles out of it!

"Hey, what the?" he gasps, astonished, "Whoa!"

"Would you look at that?" Tess remarks, folding her arms victoriously, "Looks like you owe Sir Tree an apology, huh?"

"Oh, please…" Kelvin scoffs, still feeling cynical, "You really expect me to believe that you talked to a _tree_?"

"Is that a Venonat?"

"…yes"

"And what did Sir Tree say?"

"_You_ said that I'd find Venonat over this way"

"So I'm either psychic, or able to talk to trees. Which is more likely?"

"…"

"Gotcha!"

"Got what?"

"'Tcha. That's what. You've now gotta admit to one or the other, kid. Which is it gonna be?"

"Grr…" Kelvin fumes, once again angered, "Can't we just drop this?"

"Heh, that's another point for me" Tess snickers, "So… you gonna catch this Venonat or something?"

"Huh?" Kelvin mutters, disdained, before remembering what started this entire situation, "…oh!"

The Venonat is still dazed by being knocked out of the tree, but its consciousness is slowly returning, and Kelvin realises that his time is soon running out!

"Uhmm…" he hesitates, unsure of his actions, "What can I do…?"

"Fight it? You've got an Oddish. Use that"

"I can't use an Oddish against a Venonat! She's got a type disadvantage! Besides, I'm not used to her yet…"

"That Castform you've got with you?"

"She doesn't battle…"

"A pokémon that doesn't battle? What's the point in that?"

"She just doesn't battle, OK?"

"Well you've gotta do something. It's waking up"

"Umm…"

"Gah, fine…" Tess relents. Digging into her pocket, she extracts a gleaming poke ball and throws it, "Ponyta, give it an Ember!"

For but a moment, a flash of crimson lights up the forest, and it is soon replaced with the healthy orange glow of a Ponyta's fiery mane. It makes a short whinny of acknowledgement before firing a small ball of flames from its mouth and igniting the sleeping Venonat!

"Venno?!" the Venonat gasps, springing awake and running around madly because of the fire. It rolls over to attempt to put out the flames, but soon succumbs to the pain, passing out before long.

"…that was easy" Tess deadpans, glancing towards the fried Venonat, "One barbecued Venonat to table six. Good work, Ponyta"

She pats her faithful fire horse, and says to Kelvin, "So… gonna catch it?"

"I was supposed to study it first!" Kelvin complains, "It's not wild if I've caught it now, is it?"

"That's a weird way to say 'thank you'!" Tess exclaims, placing her hands on her hips, careful to avoid her overly spiky belt. "First I help you catch a damn Oddish, now a Venonat, and I haven't heard a word of gratitude! Are you gonna be deadweight this entire trip?"

"That's not the point!" Kelvin cries, "It won't be wild any longer if I catch it, so I can't study it like we're supposed to!"

"You're not thinking at all, are you?" Tess enquires, eyeing him exasperatedly, "pokémon don't instantly become domesticated once you catch them y'know!"

"They don't?"

"Course not! It can take weeks, months, hell, even years! You can study them then!"

"But they won't be in their wild habitat…"

"How hard is it to remember a tree? It's a goddamn tree!"

"…good point"

"Wow, for such a smart guy, you sure are stupid sometimes" Tess chuckles, punching him in the arm in a 'friendly' manner.

"I'll just catch it now…" Kelvin mumbles bashfully, rubbing his pained arm before extracting a poke ball from his bag and throwing it at the comatose Venonat. The poor thing doesn't even attempt to fight as the capsule encloses around it, rolling a few times before clicking and making its expected 'toing' sound.

"That's another one down" he says quietly, approaching the poke ball and pocketing it, "…thanks, Tess. I was being kinda stupid, huh?"

"That you were" Tess deadpans in agreement, before suddenly charging off through the forest again, "Now let's get outta here?"

"Sounds good to me" Kelvin agrees, chasing after her, "Got a plan?"

"Wing it" Tess replies bluntly, "It's worked so far"

Kelvin clenches his fists, readying a scathing retort at the thought of her defying a logical approach once again, but he forces himself to calm down, and then realises; she's right. Everything she's said so far has either worked out in their favour or proved itself correct in one way or another.

"Even the Venonat in the tree…" he mutters to himself, "How does she do it?"

"Growing up on a farm, you get to know the land" Tess answers, hearing him even from a distance, "Might not be the same land, but I just see it as a puzzle with the pieces all mixed up. It's all a matter of unscrambling them"

"That's… actually pretty logical" Kelvin admits, for once agreeing with her and speeding up to keep up with her stampeding, "It looks like you really did know where we were going after all…"

"Yup" Tess answers simply, passing into a clearing, "…and would you look at that? Houses!"

"No way…" Kelvin sputters, catching up to her. "Wow, you're right!"

"Always was!" Tess chuckles, walking down the path towards the buildings in the distance, "You comin'? There should be a poke centre or something there"

"Coming!" Kelvin calls, actually smiling as he catches up to her, "And I'm… sorry, Tess. For all the trouble I've caused you so far. Really… sorry"

"It's alright, kid" Tess grins, with another 'complementary' punch to the arm, "There's hope for you yet"

And for the first time in days, the pair are actually in agreement, finally having found somewhere to stay for the night, well on their way towards Vermilion City.

* * *

**Author's note: Just a short filler chapter to take up what would be an otherwise empty void in Dylan's journey. Hopefully this one'll make you guys laugh; I enjoyed writing it.**

**I'd decided from the start that Kelvin and Tess wouldn't get along too well, with Kelvin's analytical approach to basically everything, and Tess' rash, vulgar way of doing things. This is partly why I decided they should go together, aside from the obvious Oddish that they both had to catch. It's always funny when opposites attract, huh? ;)**

**Please review if you've got a few minutes to spare. :3**


	10. You Live And You Learn

**Chapter Ten: You Live And You Learn**

It's been about a week since Zoe and Dylan have become acquainted with Steph, and to say things were running smoothly between them would be a bit of a misdirection, to put things lightly. Although Steph has agreed to help the two journey through Kanto's mainland and find the pokémon they're searching for, there was no way she would – as she so eloquently puts it – 'help a goddamn cripple waddle across the region at a Slugma's pace'. Apparently it would be murder on her back…

So through a combination of stubbornness and blackmail, Steph managed to convince the pair to wait around in Fuchsia City until Dylan's arm healed; that way he'd at least be able to support himself and walk with _two_ crutches, instead of having to rely on the two young women accompanying him.

Because of this, many a tense moment has arisen between them, with tempers being tested and patience worn thin. Dylan has dragged himself back to the hospital on multiple occasions to see whether or not his arm was fit for usage, and his frustration has increased further on every occasion that the doctor has refused to simply let him tear his arm out of the sling and be done with it.

During the last week however, Zoe has gotten to know her Poliwag a lot better, giving him the expectedly strange nickname of Coriolis – Cory for short – and starting off with some careful training around town. Cory's ability to absorb water attacks gave him an edge over the multitudes of other water types that trainers in Fuchsia seemed to be fond of, and thus he's growing fairly quickly, despite lacking any real power behind his attacks. The best he can manage right now is a fierce spray of bubbles, having not yet mastered Water Gun.

"Good job, Cory!" Zoe cries, watching her opponent's pokémon – a rather overconfident Shellder – fall victim to a brilliantly performed Hypnosis attack. The three are currently situated outside a quaint little restaurant, not too far from the beach. According to Steph, it's a fairly popular place for trainers, so they would have no troubles 'making some money outta them'.

"Pol-lipol-lipol" Cory sings, happily finishing his Hypnosis dance and skipping back towards Zoe, who picks him up and hugs him with glee.

"Wow, another one?" asks a stunned Dylan, resting in a deckchair a few metres away from her "That's three battles today that you've won!"

"You're such a clever Poliwag, aren't you?" Zoe coos to Cory, who makes an unintelligible foaming noise in response, elated at being complimented by his new owner. Cory considers this human strange, but her loving ways please him, and that's all that really matters as far as he's concerned.

"It's a waste of time if you ask me" Steph laughs, lazing idly against a wall in front of a small café, "There are much better ways to make money with your pokémon if you know what you're doin'"

She gestures towards Ataro the Hitmontop, who is busy impressing a captive audience of about ten with an amazing display of break dancing. The combination of somersaults, pirouettes, leg sweeps and handstands would be muscular torture, should a human attempt this, but Ataro has no trouble performing the dangerous stunts, and judging by the hat full of loose change, he's been doing a successful job.

"Ooh, that's pretty cool!" Zoe trills, turning to watch Ataro flip blindly through a hoop behind him and continue his dancing on the ground, "Hmm… maybe I'll teach you a nice trick like that when you evolve, huh Cory?"

"Pol…li?" Cory questions, looking up to his trainer and sweatdropping.

"I reckon a top hat and cane would suit him pretty nicely as a Poliwhirl, huh?" Dylan adds with a small chuckle, imagining a dapper Poliwhirl prancing about a stage, raising his top hat into the air with one hand and dexterously spinning his cane with the other to some cheesy swing music playing in the background.

"That's a fun idea!" Zoe giggles, looking towards Steph for a second opinion, having come to respect it greatly over the past week.

"Uh-uh?" Steph shrugs, "Feel free to give it a shot. I just have Ataro dance instead of battle because he enjoys it, and it earns us about the same amount of money without him hurting himself. It's a win-win, for all I care"

"O-oh…" Zoe falters, momentarily stumped, "But what about the battle against that Gyarados?"

"Well, there was this pair of idiots that got themselves into trouble…" Steph grins, pouncing on the opportunity to tease them both some more, "And I was on duty anyways. I couldn't just let you guys become Gyarados food while I was on duty. I would've been demoted for sure!"

"So… Ataro only battles when you're on duty?" Zoe asks, strangely intrigued by this concept.

"Course not" Steph answers bluntly, "He battles when he wants to, or when I need him to. All other times, we're just chill. The key to being a pokémon trainer… no, the first rule about _owning_ a pokémon is treating them fairly"

"Oh, I see!" Zoe understands, finding some paper in her bag and scribbling down some notes on it, "And would you say this makes a difference to a pokémon's behaviour?"

"Does a Beartic crap in the woods?" Steph snorts, reaching over and playfully ruffling Zoe's hair, "Now, you guys might not see them out in Four Island, but on the mainland, we've got plenty of what you'd call 'Ace' trainers that dedicate pretty much every waking moment to training their pokémon. Now, this isn't necessarily a bad thing, but all you've gotta do is actually _look_ at their pokémon to notice the difference"

"That… actually makes sense" Dylan chips in, deciding to join the conversation, "They say pokémon adapt so that they're like their trainers, right?"

"Yup. That's absolutely right" Steph commends him, smirking at the thought of an actual intelligent conversation for once, where she doesn't have to insult someone to get their attention, "Take Ataro here. Because I don't force him to battle constantly, he's grown all laid back and mellow. Like… me, I guess?"

"Hitmon!" Ataro yells, acknowledging his trainer. He flips up into the air once more, revolving at least twice during his jump, and lands smoothly on the ground, provoking a huge round of applause from his captive crowd.

"Good goin', Ataro" Steph chuckles, signalling her Hitmontop with a thumbs up to show her appreciation. While Ataro continues to entertain the crowds in the background, Steph carries on her explaining, "The trick is finding the balance. I mean, there's you, Dylan. You haven't trained a pokémon before, huh?"

"…nope" Dylan sighs, already feeling regretful, "I only ever hatched them from eggs, and kept the ones with better skills and natures"

"Uh-huh" Steph muses, "And the ones you hatched… they didn't really like you, correct?"

"…Cleffa does?" Dylan states, attempting to maintain at least some dignity, "I mean, the thing never stopped hugging my arm, heh. That means it likes me… right?"

"'It'?" Steph mutters, raising an eyebrow, "You don't even know if your pokémon is a male or a female?"

"Umm…" Dylan stammers self-consciously, "…no. No I don't"

"Y'see, this is one extreme" Steph explains, "Sorry to make an example of you like this, but you don't even know your pokémon. Being a Cleffa, it would've likely been a female, but the reason she never stopped hugging your arm is because she saw you as her _parent_, dude"

"S-she did?!" Dylan gasps, stunned, "I mean, I know when a pokémon hatches, it considers the first thing it sees as its owner, but that doesn't make me a _parent_ to Cleffa, does it?"

"Pokémon aren't accessories, kid" Steph deadpans, narrowing her eyes at him, "They're like family. Baby pokémon especially. Because they need extra love and attention, they see their trainers as a surrogate mother, if you will. Or… in your case, father"

"…oh" Dylan falters, while Zoe continues to scribble down notes, "So… I'm a bad trainer… huh?"

His complexion visibly balks, faced with the notion of being… sub-standard.

"No" Steph replies simply, "You're not a trainer. That would involve training. Your pokémon are essentially wild because of this, yet they're not wild because they're domesticated, having been bred in captivity, hatched, and stuffed into a box for their entire lives"

"Aww man, when you say it like that…" Dylan crumbles, "It makes me sound like a horrible person…"

"Some people would think so" Steph says, her brute honesty showing once again, "Getting to know your pokémon is an important part of having them in your life. It doesn't matter whether you're just breeding them, training them, or keeping them as pets. They're all living beings. With _feelings_. Take your friend here"

"Uwah? M-me?" Zoe trembles. Her pencil clatters to the ground with a _clink_ as nerves rise, "W-what did I do?"

"The right thing, don't worry" Steph smirks, still finding it amusing that this girl can get so easily spooked, "You _play _with your pokémon, give them nicknames and stuff, and make them happy, whether you bred them or caught them. That's a really good thing to see"

"…oh!" Zoe mumbles, her nerves subsiding again. Instantly, she returns her attention to Cory the Poliwag, and says to him, "You hear that, Cory? I'm being a good trainer!"

"That's another good thing" Steph remarks, watching Zoe tickle Cory's stomach, and Cory responding with a pleased gurgle, "She's like… ALWAYS happy. Pokémon are very receptive to moods, even ones that look retarded, like Dunsparce"

"Dunsparce?" Dylan smirks, visualising the land snake in his head, "So… they look dumb, but in the wild they're actually really smart?

"Pff, as if" Steph snorts, "They can't see very well, yet they still insist on living in dark places, like caves. Doesn't sound very smart to me"

""B-but what about their personalities?" Zoe chips in, having found her notepad to scribble on again, "There must be some reason people like them so much?"

"I think it's 'cause they look stupid _and _adorable at the same time, heh" Steph chuckles, "In the wild, they seem to think everything is food. Unless it moves, then they'll run away from it. Doesn't matter what it is. Captive ones, though… once again, it depends on the trainer, bred or otherwise"

"So… if you're grumpy, they'll turn out grumpy?" Dylan asks, furrowing his eyebrows, "Makes sense, I guess…"

"Yup, pretty much" Steph answers, "Zoe here's one of those 'middle of the road' trainers. She's gladly taking on the challenge of training her pokémon, yet she wants them to be happy first. A good balance of the two, even if she is lacking experience"

"But I'll try really hard, I promise!" Zoe chimes, picking up Cory and squishing him playfully, "I was about to give Cory a bit of a rest, because three battles is probably enough for now, right?"

"Sounds like a good idea" Steph agrees, "Knowing their limits is a must. If you push them too hard, they'll come to resent you for it. Speaking of which…"

Standing up, she strolls past Zoe and Dylan to approach Ataro, who's still entertaining a huge crowd with his acrobatic display.

"Hey there buddy!" She exclaims, kneeling down with her hands resting on her knees so that she's about level with his face, "Ready for a nice rest?"

"…Top!" Ataro shouts, springing to attention and facing his trainer. A smile breaks out across his face, and he turns back to face the crowd once again. After a moment's consideration, he tilts forward into a low, graceful bow, indicating that his little 'show' is over.

A tumultuous "Aww…" rifles through the previously captive audience, followed by an enthusiastic bout of applause, which Ataro receives gratefully.

"Great job, Ataro" Steph chuckles, playfully ruffling his head crest and scooping up the hat, which is bulging with change, "Damn, there's gotta be 3000 in here. You've earned yourself some poffins!"

"Monnn-top!" Ataro cheers, delighted at the thought of delicious poffins, and the pair slowly walk back towards Zoe and Dylan. "Ready to go?" She asks, simply holding onto the hat full of change.

"One… moment!" Dylan gasps, wrenching himself back to his 'feet' and hopping over to her, "Can we stop off at the hospital on the way? I wanna see if I can get rid of this damn thing…"

He nods to his sling bound right arm, "I've been wearing it for a week now, so I should be able to take it off, right?"

"Hell if I know" Steph deadpans once again, "I'm not a doctor. But yeah, I can imagine your frustration. I mean, it's stopping you from doing… pretty much anything" she analyses, watching Zoe willingly hoist him up from under his arm for support once again.

"Heh, that's putting it lightly" Dylan tries to laugh, with him and Zoe slowly plodding forwards, "Oh yeah, what were you saying about those 'Ace' trainers?"

"Huh? Ohh, right…" Steph responds, catching up with his line of conversation, "Well, they'd be the other extreme. Like I said earlier, they dedicate every waking moment to training, but because of it, their pokémon tend to suffer"

"Suffer?" Zoe asks, confused, "H-how so?"

"They lose all trace of a personality" Steph states, "Anything that makes them even remotely unique. They're like frickin' Marines, following orders without question. While this isn't _bad_, because the pokémon still function, and they respect their trainers, they fall out of touch with their natural instincts, knowing only how to battle, and win. It's like they lose any knowledge of what it was like to be wild…"

"Oh gosh…" Zoe mumbles, "That sounds so horrible!"

"Yeah, I kinda feel sorry for them, I've gotta admit" Steph sighs, "The worst part is, they don't take well to being beaten. I saw this one guy take on Fuchsia's gym leader Janine a few weeks back. Now, Janine's a Poison expert, and this guy tried to put up a fight using only Grass types. While your team can overcome their weaknesses with the proper training, that's a gym leader's specialty, so he was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Needless to say, she wiped the floor with him, and the aftermath… oh, it was awful"

"W-what happened?" Dylan dares to ask, unsure if he even wants to know.

"The trainer got all depressed. He went and found a bar, and got himself wasted" Steph explains, "Now, I can't say I blame him for that, but once he'd gotten himself drunk, he started challenging random people to battles. His pokémon were already exhausted from his battle with Janine, but he was drunk and didn't give a shit. He just kept pushin' them further, and further, until…"

"Un…til?" Zoe trembles, positively afraid of what evils lurked on the end of that sentence. Yet still she insists on knowing, as if she had to satisfy the morbid curiosity. Meanwhile, Dylan mumbles a sombre "Oh, no…"

"That's right…" Steph sighs, glancing skywards to avert her gaze, "One of them couldn't take the pressure, and… lost consciousness. The trainer had finally realised that he was pushing them too hard by this point, but it was too late. The poor bugger's heart gave out in hospital…"

"Oh dear…" Zoe sniffs, squeezing Cory the Poliwag tight, "H-how could someone do that?"

"That's the problem with Aces" Steph's voice echoes hollowly, "They will literally battle their pokémon to the death. They're so busy training their 'Arian race' that they forget about that one important thing"

"W-what's that?" Zoe asks, wiping away an escaped tear.

"…life" Dylan answers, finally understanding what the Day Care Man said to him back on Four Island, "I-It doesn't matter how long you live if you don't _live_"

"Couldn't have said it better myself" Steph agrees, "That's where this balance comes in. If your pokémon's not enjoying itself, you're not fit to train it"

"Wow…" Dylan mutters, "All my life, I thought I knew everything there was to know about pokémon. But I took a step back, and realised; I know nothing about pokémon"

"Nah, that's not true" Steph tries to reassure him, "When it comes to the breeding side, you know lots of stuff, huh?"

"…yeah"

"It's just _beyond _the eggshell that you don't know anything!" Steph chuckles, trying to inject some humour into an otherwise macabre conversation, "But don't worry, that's where I come in! I can help with all that crap to make sure you guys follow the right paths and become awesome trainers!"

Glancing over towards Steph, Dylan manages a smile, wondering exactly what he'd done to deserve her help. 'She's been so reluctant up until now…' he thinks, watching her tawny curls bob up and down as she walks alongside him. However, not paying attention to the path ahead of him comes with a consequence. Stumbling on Fuchsia's lumpy, uneven roads yet again, almost bowling him and Zoe over, he mumbles"…Oops. Sorry, Zo"

"Aww, that's alright, Dylan" Zoe giggles obliviously, not noticing that he wasn't even looking where he was going. However, this near accident causes her to decide that holding onto Cory while supporting Dylan perhaps is _not_ the best idea. So with a slight reluctance, she withdraws him back into his poke ball, and further supports Dylan by stretching her skinny arms around his chest, "Just take your time, OK? We've got all day, after all"

"Well, maybe _you_ have" Steph remarks, stomping along behind them, "But I've gotta organise some stuff with my boss today"

"Hmm…" Zoe muses, "Well… how about you go and see your boss, and organise your things, then meet us back at the hospital? How long do you think you'll take?"

"Shouldn't be too long" Steph answers, "I've just gotta organise for someone to take over my ranger shifts for the next few weeks while I ferry you guys around. Depends on his mood, I guess…"

"Well, we're nearly _at_ the hospital…" Dylan remarks, nodding towards the towering complex in the distance, "So you go find your boss, convince him to let you take a few months off, then come find us? We'll be at the hospital, most likely"

"You promise you guys won't get caught up in anything stupid?" Steph teases, eyeing the pair of teens, "Cause if I have to get Ataro to save you both from becoming Gyarados food _again_, I won't be pleased, got it?"

"Got it" Both he and Zoe reply in near unison. "We'll be fine, don't worry" Dylan continues on his own, "How can we get lost going in a straight line?"

"It could happen!" Steph laughs, "With you guys, I'm pretty sure any kinda mayhem's possible"

"Alright, I'll make you a deal" Dylan humours her, "If we get dead, you don't have to help us travel around the region, OK?"

"Heh, sounds good to me!" Steph chuckles, "…alright kids, I trust ya. I'll see you both in half an hour or so… I hope"

With a roguish wink, she beckons for Ataro to follow, and charges off down a different road, ambling around a corner and almost bowling over another pair of trainers, "Hey, watch it!"

"She sure is… lively, huh?" Dylan suggests to Zoe, and the pair continues to inch towards the hospital in the distance. While it's only a few hundred metres away, and easily in sight, the combination of fatigue, the wrath of the midday sun, and Dylan's 'condition' has made progress almost unbearably slow for him. Zoe, on the other hand, is just happy to be helping Dylan. The fact that they're going nowhere fast is only a bonus for her, if anything, because it means more 'quality time' with him.

"Ohh, very much so!" Zoe giggles, slowly plodding along Fuchsia's painfully jagged roads alongside him, careful that neither of them trip over a poorly angled rock or something, "She's so… full of energy!"

"Yeah, I've no idea how the hell she does that" Dylan hesitates, confused, "I mean, she's like my age… I think, yet she can do all this athletic stuff all day, and I just… sleep, eheh…"

"Maybe that's why?" Zoe suggests, with a slight shrug, "Because you enjoy your sleep, your body isn't used to doing all those active things, and hence doesn't really want to?"

"Hmm, yeah, you've probably got a point there…" Dylan agrees, "I guess I should think about changing that or something, huh?"

"Only if you want to" Zoe says, as the pair of them try to sidestep a particularly awkward looking cobble on the ground, "If you change to suit someone else, you'll regret it no matter what happens, I think?"

"Hunh? What makes you think that?" Dylan can't help but ask, wondering how someone could prefer him as a lazy slob in contrast to an athletic and active him, which in his mind can only be an improvement.

"Well, it's like I said back on Four Island" Zoe muses, drafting up an applicable example in her mind, "While some people will see you as lazy, unmotivated and lethargic, others will see you as calm, easy going and nonchalant. If you use the right words, you can make anything sound nice!"

"Ohh, I get it!" Dylan exclaims, "I'm not lazy! I'm just… nope, I'm lazy"

He tries to think up a better synonym in time, but he eventually decides against sugar coating it. He still manages a grin regardless, however.

"Like, take me for example" Zoe suggests, drumming up another one in no time at all, "I may be little, but that's not a bad thing if you look at it in a different way. Small people are easier to hug, for instance!"

"Heh, that's true" Dylan agrees, squeezing her gently, "But what do you do when people call you names and stuff? I mean, everyone's been picked on at some point in life, huh?"

"Yup!" Zoe laughs, manoeuvring around another oddly shaped rock, "It's all a matter of putting a positive spin on it! Like, I'm not _small_, I'm fun-size! And I'm not _weird, _I'm limited edition!"

"Hah, those _are_ positive spins" Dylan chuckles, with the entrance to the hospital finally drawing near.

"Yeah…" Zoe sighs, smiling. "I used to say 'idiosyncratic' instead of weird, but no one knew what the long word meant, so I changed it to avoid being called 'nerd' on top of everything else, y'know?"

"So that's an example of when it's _good_ to change?" Dylan asks, somewhat understanding.

With he and Zoe now approaching the counter, she responds with "Yip! It took basically no effort, which made it nice and easy to do, with minimal consequence to boot!"

The receptionist at the counter notices the pair, and looks up from her computer screen, "Can I help you two?"

"Uhh yeah, I'm here to see if I can have this removed?" Dylan asks the nurse, gently swinging his sling bound arm to demonstrate, "I've had it on for a week, just like the guy said, and I'd really like to remove the damn thing now?"

"Seems fair to me!" The nurse smiles, tapping away at her keyboard, "Now, if you'll just go wait in one of the exam rooms in THAT ward" she adds with a point, "I'll get a consultant to have a look at it soon, OK?"

"Awesome, thanks!" Dylan replies, and he and Zoe slowly toddle off towards the specified location, where Dylan hopes to _finally_ be rid of his sling!

Meanwhile…

"Ohh man…" A despondent Steph groans, meaning against the outside wall of Fuchsia City's ranger hut. It's a quaint little building, consisting mostly of logs, and only about five hundred metres or so away from the beach, with a raised veranda-like platform circling around the second floor to serve as a lookout. It was from this very lookout that Steph spotted Dylan and Zoe getting into trouble with the Gyarados last week.

"Right, let's get this over with…" she sighs, burying her hands as far as the pockets of her shorts will allow and hunching her shoulders. She stomps through the carelessly open door and down the hallway, "Hey… anyone here?"

A drowsy grunt from the other room tells her that she timed her arrival well, and she warily edges into the room, sighing with exasperation at the sight, "What a surprise…"

The musty combination of stale sweat and alcohol forces its way up her nostrils, causing her to wrinkle it almost instinctively in an attempt to minimise the exposure to its stench. She blinks repeatedly to stop her eyes watering any more, trying her best to focus as she looks around the decrepit mess of a room. The bluish white glare of a computer screen is the only source of light in this darkened room, and Steph is pretty sure she doesn't want to know what it's been used for. As usual, the curtains have been left closed, to better nurse the hangover of the burly man splashed across the spindly chair in the centre of the room. The chair somehow balances him, but that's probably because of the unsavoury number of bottles surrounding him, ranging from lagers to spirits and anything else he could get his hands on, it would appear. Judging by the empty bottle of _dish soap_, Steph is surprised the guy's still conscious. But with a solemn shake of her head, she averts her gaze away from this despicable sight and realises that she's not surprised at all; this is pretty much an everyday occurrence for him.

As for the man himself, she wishes she could say he's seen better days, but he really hasn't. An unkempt two inches of stubble scratches at his chin and mouth, almost like the barbed wire fence around a graveyard, where the barren metaphor suits his mouth perfectly; the few teeth he has remaining are browned, misshapen, and pointing at strange angles. Normally left gaping open for easy access, which of course means snoring and bad breath, the man's broad flat nose, untimely wrinkles and long scraggly brown hair complete his pitiful appearance. His only redeeming feature is his eyes, which sparkled in an attractive dark shade of brown. About ten years ago. Nowadays they're just cold and empty pinpricks, as dark and deep as the sorrows he drowns himself in almost every night.

"…hey" she sighs, covering her mouth to avoid inhaling any more noxious fumes, "I… need some time off. Gonna help two kids get to Vermilion, so you're gonna have to organise some cover for me, OK?"

"…whuh?" the burly man grunts, wrenching himself into a sitting position. He drains the last of what looks like a bottle of scotch that he was holding in his hand, and drops it onto the pile, "But you can' go! How'm I g'na take care o'ya?"

He hiccups, and a bubble escapes from his gaping mouth, comically evident that he has indeed drank the dish soap…

"I'll be fine, don't worry" Steph tries to state as bluntly as she can, but just being in this room is making her nauseous, and thus difficult to maintain her composure, "'Sides, I've been taking pretty good care of myself for the past few years. A lot better than you have, anyway…"

However, this contempt falls on deaf ears, as the uncouth specimen has fallen asleep again, snoring loudly.

"Ugh, should've known an actual conversation was asking too much…" she groans, grimacing as she carefully reaches over the slumbering mound to grab a pen.

She scribbles down a note on a post-it, and attaches it to the door of the office, which she then closes. "I know you don't want me to go, but it's about time we _both_ moved on…"

And without another word, she rushes out of the ranger's hut, leaving behind the only trace of her visit; the note.

'I'm going away for a while. Someone's gonna have to cover for me

-Steph'

* * *

**Author's note:**

**Hai there guys. About time I updated this one, huh?**

**Sorry that it's mostly dialogue, but it fills in a little about Steph's past, and moves the storyline along a little.**

**Next up; a visit to the Safari Zone. :3**


	11. Golden Arm

**Chapter Eleven: Golden Arm**

Back at the hospital…

"OK Mr Cameron, all of the tests are showing positive results!" one of the hospital's doctors, a dark-haired middle aged man, announces with a smile, "As far as I'm concerned, you're free to take off that sling now"

"OH! YES!" An exultant Dylan shouts, literally tearing the fabric away from his arm and flexing it excitedly, "So… it's like fully healed now, right?"

"Well, I wouldn't recommend any arm wrestling contests for a couple of weeks at least" the doctor chuckles, trying to inject some humour into the situation, "But as long as you don't put too much strain on it, you should be fine"

"I can use two crutches now?" Dylan asks, pointing to his still damaged leg.

"You should be OK, yes" the doctor advises, adjusting his overly large glasses, "As long as you take it easy, and rest appropriately"

"Heh. Resting's what I'm good at" Dylan laughs, clenching his freshly 'healed' right arm into a fist, "So that shouldn't be a problem"

"Walking with the crutches should help restore the muscle loss, too" the doctor adds, "Oh, and take a stress ball. That'll help as well"

He turns around and opens a cupboard, extracting an almost dauntingly huge bag of pokémon themed stress balls, "Here, choose one!"

"Holy crap! That's a lot!" Dylan gasps, "How many kids with broken arms do you get in here?!"

"You'd be surprised…" the doctor sighs, "Fuchsia City is surrounded by rocky coastline on the south side, rough wilderness on the north, and biker gangs terrorise the roads on the east and west sides. Because of this, the kids have grown pretty much fearless. While that's not a _bad_ thing, it does tend to lead to plenty of injuries…"

"S-so… how many of these do you get through?" Dylan tries to chuckle, wading into the bag to try and find a good stress ball, "Oh cool, a Koffing"

"Aww, but what about this cute little Oddish?" Zoe suggests, picking up the mostly blue stress ball with an overgrown Oddish face on the front, four limbs dangling uselessly from it, and a few tiny leaves on the top of its 'head'.

"Can she have one too?" Dylan laughs, noticing that Zoe has pretty much adopted the Oddish already due to her hugging it lovingly.

"Sure thing" the doc dismisses them with a casual wave, "It's not like we don't have plenty"

"Wow, thanks!" Zoe chirps almost a little _too_ excitedly, while Dylan finally makes a decision on his stress ball; A Delibird.

"Ooh, nice choice!" Zoe giggles, "It'll remind you of home!"

"Yup" Dylan replies simply, giving the ball a test squeeze with his right hand, "S'why I chose it. Damn, my arm still feels sorta stiff…"

"It will for a little while" the doctor advises, handing him a second crutch to walk with. "It's like I said, though. Don't do anything overly strenuous with that arm and you should be fine"

"Got it" Dylan nods, standing up on his one foot. He pockets the Delibird stress ball, and tests his weight on two crutches. As expected of everyone in the room, he's a little unsteady at first, but the firm rubber grips on both crutches stop him from slipping over and making a laughing stock of himself.

"Awesome. Thanks Doc!" Dylan shouts back to the doctor, unnecessarily confident after only three steps on the crutches, on a flat, slip-resistant ground.

"Remember, be careful!" the doctor calls back, "I don't wanna see you back here in half an hour!"

"I'll be fine, don't worry!" Dylan says, confidently swinging forwards alongside Zoe, "Man, this is definitely an improvement, huh?"

"I'll say" Zoe agrees, happily squeezing her Oddish ball, "I think I'll miss the hugs, though…"

"Hey, come on now" Dylan objects at the hospital's doorway, "Who said there'd be no more hugs?"

"Ohh, I just thought they'd stop when you didn't need the help walking…" Zoe murmurs, rolling her eyes slyly.

"Heh, you silly thing" Dylan chuckles, throwing his right hand crutch into his left hand for a moment, "Come here…"

"Heehee!" Zoe giggles, bounding towards him and wrapping her arms around him all too enthusiastically. So much so that the pair overbalance and fall backwards into the wall!

"Oww…" Dylan grunts, feebly stretching his arm around Zoe, "This kinda stuff seems to happen to us a lot, huh?"

"…yup!" Zoe agrees with a slight – but embarrassed – giggle, "S-sorry about that…"

The pair simply look and smile awkwardly at each other for a moment, only to be interrupted by a third voice;

"So… you guys finished, or should I come back later?"

Both Zoe's and Dylan's eyes bolt wide open in shock, and they both turn their heads in the direction of the voice. Just a few metres away from them, Steph stands, with her hands on her waist and her eyes analysing the situation; one she can only perceive as funny.

From how she sees it, Zoe has advanced on Dylan in a public hospital, backing him up against a wall and somehow disarming him of his crutches. With her arms raised around his neck, her body aligned with his, and Dylan's fixed arm around her lower back, Steph wonders if she should've made her presence known here.

"I thought you two weren't like that?" she chuckles, folding her arms and raising her eyebrows jokingly, "Nice to know you're all uhh… better"

"W-we're not!" Dylan splutters, scrabbling back into a standing position, with crutches in _both_ hands "We just fell, that's all!"

He and Zoe separate, and Steph decides to have a little more fun with them, "Uh-huh. And she just _fell_ on top of you?"

"It's happened before?" Dylan shrugs, "Hey Zo"

"Y-yeah…" Zoe agrees, trying to fend off her recent embarrassment, but not having much luck.

"And how did her arms get around your neck?" Steph chuckles, "Pretty sure that didn't just happen"

"Well, we were hugging, and that's how we fell…" Dylan sighs, swinging his way past her on his crutches again. "I don't care if you don't believe us or not. That's what happened…"

The smirk disappears from Steph's face when she sees Dylan's complexion visibly fall, and she realises that she's gone too far.

"Aww, alright…" she concedes, in an attempt to make up for her inwardly confessed idiocy, "I was just teasin'"

"I gathered" Dylan deadpans, "C'mon Zo, let's go see how much the Safari Zone costs"

"Okeydokey!" Zoe sings, her smile returning to her face as she skips after Dylan, easily catching up to him.

"S-sorry, you two" Steph mumbles, feeling the need for a rare apology, "I didn't wanna upset you"

"Well, maybe you wanna be a little more careful with what you say?" Dylan suggests bluntly, "Cause you can be pretty insulting sometimes"

"I-I know…" Steph mutters, "But it's just… who I am. Yellin' and insultin' people is my way of communicating"

Zoe raises her hand, intent on asking why, but Steph forestalls it by hastily adding "Long story. Don't ask, please"

"O-oh. OK, then" Zoe stammers, lowering her hand again. Keen on staving off the awkward vibe that's slowly creeping up on the three, she decides to change the subject, "So… how much will it cost to enter the Safari Zone?"

"Uhh, last I checked, it was 500 per head" Steph answers, provoking shocked gasps from both of them, "But it's worth it, don't worry. You get thirty Safari Balls for catching pokémon with, and you don't even need a pokémon to fight with. It's pretty much the perfect place for newbie trainers to catch their first pokémon, as long as they don't expect anything too exotic"

"Lemme guess, a Dratini would be one of those 'exotic' ones?" Dylan asks, hanging his head.

"Yup" Steph deadpans, "But you should find one as long as you're persistent. Got a fishing rod?"

"…nope" Dylan sighs, "Should've thought of that and borrowed one from Fisherman Joe back home, huh?"

"Oh, so you _weren't_ expecting Dratini to just be rolling around on land?" Steph asks snidely, a smirk tugging at her lips once again.

"…no" Dylan replies dismissively, his voice going all quiet as an attempt to hide the fact that he sort of _was_ expecting that.

"Heh, sure thing" Steph humours him, "Looks like we'll have to improvise or something then, huh?"

"Sounds good to me" Dylan agrees, "It's what I usually do anyways!"

"Oh, and one other thing about this place" Steph advises, as the trio enter through the Safari Zone's front gates, "The pokémon here are pretty much wild, but they know not to attack trainers. From your point of view, it's gotta be the perfect place for studying wild pokémon, am I right?"

"Yes indeedy!" An attentive Safari Zone warden pipes up, "As long as you don't directly provoke the pokémon, you'll be perfectly safe to interact with them however you wish, be it studying or just simply catching them!"

"Ooh, that's good news!" Zoe chimes, "Looks like we'll be able to impress the old man with some research on rare pokémon in the wild too, huh Dylan?"

"Uhh… sure thing" Dylan shrugs, having no real intent on study.

"Nicely said" Steph casually addresses the warden, "We'll take three tickets, please?"

"Three tickets…" the warden muses, typing away at his computer screen, "So, two adults and one child? That'll be 1300, please"

"Child?" Dylan mutters, ready to object, "But-"

Without changing her facial expression, Steph smoothly claps her hand over his mouth to prevent him from saying something stupid, and says, "1300 sounds good!"

Reaching into her back pocket, she extracts a bulging wallet full of the loose change from earlier, "You don't mind change, do you?"

"Nope, change'll be fine" The warden laughs, wondering exactly _how_ she could fit so much coinage into that wallet. Steph takes a fair amount of time counting out 1300 poke in change, before scooping over the hefty heap of metal with two hands, "There ya go! That _should_ be right! If it isn't, lemme know on the way out, and I'll pay you the difference then, OK?"

"Thank you miss, that's very earnest of you" The warden smiles, negotiating the pile of coins onto another counter with the intention of counting it later, "Here are your thirty Safari Balls" he adds, handing the three of them a clear plastic case full of Safari Balls, with a convenient handle for holding them, "Once you run out, or wander off too far, we'll let you know that your time's up, got it?"

"Got it" Both Dylan and Zoe respond together, and the warden has just one more question. "A-are you sure you'll be OK, sir?" he asks, "those crutches will certainly limit your mobility, and there's some pretty rough terrain out there…"

"Yeah, I'll be fine, don't worry" Dylan responds calmly, "'Sides, I'm not planning on moving too much. Just fishin'"

"OK then! Please enjoy your Safari Zone experience!" The warden announces, with a cheerful wave and smile to further imply that he's a genuinely happy person, rather than one who's just paid to be happy.

"Looks like I'm not the only one who sometimes says dumb stuff, huh?" Steph chuckles, the three of them clearing the gate and exiting into the wilderness of the Safari Zone. As the warden described, Dylan's crutches would only make things harder for him on this rugged terrain. Not far removed from your typical savannah, The Safari Zone seemed to comprise mostly of rocky patches, semi-arid grassy fields and the occasional watering holes, which all three can tell are teeming with aquatic life.

"Hey, I was just annoyed 'cause they thought Zoe was a kid, that's all!" Dylan complains, instinctively heading for the nearest body of water.

"Hey, I'm not complainin'" Steph laughs, "It saved me 200 poke. What about you?" She asks Zoe, who flinches again, to no one's surprise.

"O-oh, I don't mind. I'm used to it" Zoe shrugs, "Besides, it shows that being little can sometimes be useful, huh?"

"…that's a point" Dylan agrees, and the three of them stop beside a small lake about three hundred metres away from the gate, "So… how're we gonna do this?"

"The fishing thing?" Steph asks with a slight shrug, "Beats me. You guys figure somethin' out though, cause I'm gonna go catch stuff!"

"Aw, b-but-" Zoe starts to object, but she's quickly silenced by Steph.

"…nah! I paid for you two to get in here. I _think_ I'm within my rights here by sayin' I'm not babysittin' you both for a while, got it?"

"…OK then!" Zoe chimes, still bizarrely happy somehow.

"That's better" Steph smirks, subjecting the both of them to another one of her firm stares, "Now you play nicely together, OK? Don't do anything I wouldn't!"

"That doesn't exactly limit us now, does it?" Dylan retorts, shocked at his surprisingly witty comeback that even he doesn't know from whence it came.

"Oh, I can think of one thing!" Steph hints loudly, pointing at a completely oblivious Zoe from behind, "Got it Dylan?"

"Ugh…" Dylan sighs, annoyed at her painfully obvious hint, "Whatever…"

"Heh heh…" Steph chuckles herself, dashing off through the long grass to more distant areas of the Safari Zone, "Now, time to find me some pokémon!"

"What… did she mean by that?" Zoe asks bemusedly, spinning around to glance at Steph, as she slowly disappears off into the distance, "Any idea, Dylan?"

"Nope" Dylan lies through his teeth, knowing _exactly_ what Steph meant, "So… how 'bout this fishing thing? I'm open to suggestions?"

"Hmm…" Zoe muses, hatching a plan in her mind, "Well, I've got some wire in my bag?" she proposes, retrieving said spool of wire from her bag for proof. "So if we tie this to a nice stick, that should do OK?"

"…why do you have wire in your bag?" An incredulous Dylan finds himself asking, despite his better judgement.

She simply shrugs as a response, and answers with "Why not? You never know when random things like this will be useful. For example…"

She starts pulling several more strange objects from the depths of her bag, including the Oddish stress ball from earlier, a spork, a pen knife and a clamp?

"Like uhh… we could use the spork to tie the wire around and function as the lever to reel it in, this knife to cut off branches and stuff, and the clamp to keep it all in place?" She suggests, piecing together perhaps the best improvised fishing rod concept in history. "Ooh, we could even use Mario as a lure!"

"Uhh, Mario?" Dylan asks, even more confused than before.

"Oh, that's what I named the Oddish doll! Isn't he cute?" Zoe giggles, picking up 'Mario' and squeezing 'him' playfully.

"Eheh…" Dylan falters, stunned that she could even dream something like this up. But his thoughts are interrupted by another voice:

"Oh c'mon, let's get going already!"

"B-but I need to catch two! I only have one, and that's an awful number!"

Stomping her way past them is none other than Miranda Miller.

She's carrying in her hands what looks like a heavy set of gold dentures of all things, and in tow, Kasey Fynch reluctantly follows, complete with a convenient fishing rod!

"Heyyy, there's a better idea!" Dylan exclaims, shooting down Zoe's amazing resourcefulness immediately.

"Aww, and I'd almost got it to work…" She sighs, and chuckles reservedly. Putting down her creation, she turns her attention to the two newcomers. "Hey, what are you two doing here?"

"Oh! Hello there!" A surprised Miranda gasps, momentarily taken aback, "Well, it's a bit of a long story. We found out that there was a man in Fuchsia who loved fossils, so I went to go visit him, seeing as I need two fossil pokémon for my six, y'know?"

Zoe nods, and Miranda continues, "Well, when we got there, we had trouble understanding the guy. All he did was make these strange gurgling sounds. But then I found out that Kasey here has the ability to speak toothless!"

"I-It was nothing, really…" A modest Kasey remarks, attempting to wave away the obvious compliment, "I just have a grandmother who requires dentures, and she often forgets where she leaves them, so I just… learned to communicate with her?"

"Aww, don't be so shy!" Miranda encourages him, "It was really smart of you, Kasey?"

"Oh, it… was?" Kasey gasps, his face shining with a combination of confusion and newfound pride, "Ahah, I guess it was, wasn't it?!"

"However, I can't speak toothless, so we both went to the Safari Zone to find the guy's teeth, which Kasey cleverly found out" Miranda continues explaining, with a cheerful nudge in Kasey's direction, "And he's here to fish up a Horsea, which he found earlier, isn't that right Kasey?"

"Y-yes! Yes it is!" Kasey concurs, extracting a single Safari Ball from the pocket of his shorts, which appear to be stained with ink, "But I am rather disappointed that I could only catch the one. I wished for two, so I could contrast them…"

"You've got one, Kasey, that's enough!" Miranda sighs, somewhat exasperated at the young man's obsessions already.

"B-b-but it isn't…" Kasey sighs, nervously running a hand through his orangey hair, "I dislike odd numbers, I really do…"

"You can compare it with the one you bred, can't you?" Zoe suggests timidly, "That's what I'm doing with my Cory!"

"…Cory?" A confused Kasey questions, "What's a Cory?"

"My Poliwag!" Zoe explains, also removing a poke ball from her bag and showing it to them, "I caught him in town a week or so back!"

"Oh, by that big lake?" Miranda asks, putting two and two together, "Funny, that's where we were just yesterday! The old toothless guy lives there!"

"Oh wow, really?" Zoe replies, shocked, "What are the odds of that?"

"I know, right?" Miranda cries, equally stunned, "Well, we're gonna get going now, OK? Gotta deliver the teeth and… stuff"

"Oh? but I wish to catch another Horsea!" Kasey complains, ready to cast his line into the lake where Dylan's sitting as he speaks.

"There's no need Kasey, c'mon…" Miranda sighs, grabbing the young man by his arm and forcibly dragging him away.

"Hey, wait a sec!" Dylan calls, "Can I borrow that rod? I've gotta fish me up a Dratini!"

"A-and I wasn't doing a very good job of making a fishing rod…" Zoe chuckles timidly, showing them her surprisingly efficient looking model, where she'd somehow managed to fasten the spork to the 'rod' itself and maintained its ability to revolve, thus acting as a reel for the wire.

"I-I actually think it looks pretty cool?" Miranda shrugs honestly, feeling she should give credit where it's due.

"But of course, my good sir!" Kasey obliges, taking the chance to break free of Miranda's grasp and hand Dylan the rod, "I am glad that I can assist you!"

"…thanks" Dylan mutters nervously, still slightly perturbed by Kasey's manner of speaking, "Hey, you guys wanna meet up in the poke centre tonight? It's a bit late to start travelling anywhere, huh?"

"Yeah, that seems like a good idea" Miranda agrees, once again tugging on Kasey's arm to drag him away, "C'mon Kasey, let's get going already!"

"…alright then" Kasey concedes, relenting to her determined grip on his arm, "I guess one will have to suffice for now…"

"Wow. Talk about unexpected, huh?" Zoe giggles, watching the pair disappear into the Safari Zone's entrance.

"I'll say" Dylan agrees, inexpertly casting his line in front of him and just barely landing it in the water, sinking his hook in the shallows. "…damn. I'm not very good at this"

"Aww, I'm sure you'll get better with practice?" Zoe tries to encourage him, "Now, let's find some pokémon to study…"

She creeps off towards the tall grass so that she can find some wild specimens to observe, while Dylan valiantly persists in his fishing attempts, pleasantly surprised when, after only a short while, he feels a weight on the end of the line!

"Ooh, found something!" He cries, excitedly reeling it in. Careful not to lose his catch, he restrains himself into slowing down his reeling, and pulls up;

"A _shoe_?! Man, I thought that was just a cliché!" He sighs, detaching the deceptively heavy boot from the hook and casting again, "That's just typical…"

On the other hand, Zoe is just a few metres away from the increasingly frustrated Dylan, biding her time by examining some of the Safari Zone's wild pokémon and jotting down notes on them.

"Let's see, Nidorino are the males, so they go hunting for food, and bring it back to mother Nidorina, who raise their young like us mammals…" she mutters, scribbling manically, "Hmm, those Nidoran babies must be too young for solid foods, so they rely on their mother's milk. That makes sense…"

Scurrying a few feet further, she comes across a herd of Rhyhorn, who appear to be engaged in some sort of competition. Kneeling down behind a tree stump so that she won't be seen, she watches from afar…

"Rhyhorn take part in contests of strength to determine their leaders" she voices her jotting. And just as she says that, there's the loud CRASH of two rugged, rocky bodies smashing into each other at high speed!

"They don't seem to be very good at turning corners…" Zoe analyses, watching the two Rhyhorn in the centre of the group. They would smash into each other, recoil and retreat back a few feet, then slowly revolve on the spot with their large, unwieldy bodies, move forwards a couple of feet, and slowly turn to face each other again to repeat the process.

"It doesn't seem as though they can move sideways very well, either?" She questions, squinting, "Hey, how're you doing, Dylan?"

"Nothing much so far…" he sighs dejectedly, shaking his rod around a little to try and attract something, "Just a boot so far, and that's pretty much-"

A sudden stirring on the end of his line stops his conversation in its tracks, "OH, I think I got one!"

"Ooh, yay!" Zoe cries, spinning around to watch the action unfold, "Good luck!"

"C'mon…" he puffs, straining his rod to try and reel in the catch, "Please don't be another boot…"

A couple minutes of determined tugging on the rod has him finally dredging his catch up from the depths of the lake…

"Oh man…" Dylan sighs, "Not a Magikarp?!"

The crimson fish flops gently on the edge of the line, completely unaware of what's going on, and why it's not underwater, swimming about happily with the rest of its Magikarp brethren.

"Wonderful…" Dylan grumbles, detaching the poor fish from his line, "Back ya go!"

"Well… at least it was a pokémon this time?" Zoe suggests, always the optimist.

"Yeah, I guess…" Dylan sighs, casting his line once again, "Tell me there's a Dratini in here somewhere?"

"There's a Dratini in there somewhere!" Zoe giggles, oblivious as usual to his rhetorical question.

"…heh. Thanks, Zo" Dylan manages a chuckle, adjusting his legs to stop them going numb and preparing for a long wait…

"Damn arm's getting tired already…" he sighs, wedging his fishing line against a rock to give his right arm a rest. As he's only had it out of its sling for all of an hour, he doesn't want to put too much strain on it, as that would only exacerbate things further. He carefully flexes his wrist joint, before adjusting his glasses and placing both hands on the fishing rod once again, "I don't wanna wait out here all frickin' day…"

However, unbeknownst to him, a pokémon lurks beneath the surface of the lake. The little streak of blue stares at this strange trainer for a while, before flitting off through the water again, dashing between the shoals of oblivious Magikarp. It finds a nice cave to hide in, where it can watch this trainer from afar. This pokemon finds him somewhat entertaining...

* * *

Dylan stubbornly persists with his fishing, and an elated Zoe continues venturing through the long grass in search of more pokémon to study. However, they both are completely unaware of how Steph's doing, quite some distance from either of them.

"Wait for it…" she mutters to herself, hiding behind a nice, bulky rock. In a clearing a few metres away from where she's hiding, a rather large herd of Tauros feed on grass. One will occasionally grunt at another, should they come too close, but the herd otherwise tolerates each other for the sake of food and safety in numbers. Although wild, these Tauros know that they're less likely to be captured if they stick together. Meanwhile, Steph is waiting for one to stray just slightly from the herd, so that she can pounce on opportunity and catch herself a Tauros. Having always liked Tauros for their angry natures, she's been stalking this herd since leaving Dylan and Zoe behind earlier.

Meanwhile, a lonely Paras wanders through the long grass, looking for some shade from the horrible heat of the afternoon sun. Struggling to even push the grass aside due to its tiny size, it slowly progresses to where it's sure its home is. The young Paras hasn't quite gotten used to its surroundings just yet, and becomes confused when it finds, of all things, a person blocking its path!

Trying to carefully negotiate its way around the trainer, noticing that she looks busy, Paras attempts to claw its way around the rock, albeit with limited success. The punishing sunlight has its strength drained, and climbing the rock - which is almost at a vertical angle - is simply impossible right now. So Paras tries a different tactic, and simply tries to get the trainer's attention. After all, it really needs to reach the cool safety of its home soon, otherwise this sunlight will be the end of it…

"C'mon, move already!" Steph mutters angrily, frustrated at the Tauros' stubborn refusal to budge. The herd hasn't moved at all in the last ten minutes or so that she's been watching them, almost as it they're making a point. She sighs, and buries her head in her arms, at first unaware of the soft prickling that's working its way up her back…

"Hunh?" she grunts, shuffling to try and dispel the itching, before realising that the 'itch' is moving!

"Whah?!" she screeches, jumping to her feet in an almost comically feminine display of fear, and consequently spooking the herd of Tauros, "What the hell?!"

The herd charges off away from her with a series of loud snorting and mooing, while she spins around frantically to try and figure out what scared her, only to find it clutching onto her clothes for dear life. Some painful contortionism has her removing the tiny Paras from the small of her back, where it's promptly thrown to the floor by a hysterical Steph.

"Gah!" she cries, watching the little bug bounce along the ground, "Dammit! Lost 'em!"

She kneels down to look at the Paras, which is slowly dragging itself off towards a shady spot, now lost and confused, not to mention in pain from being thrown. "That was your own fault, y'know" Says Steph to the little Paras, who coils up as tightly as it can to avoid the sunlight. Thirst has crept up on it during its little 'excursion', but the watering hole is far too far away for it to manage in this heat. So, literally stuck between a rock and a hard place, Paras curls up tight to minimise energy usage, hoping that the sun will disappear behind some clouds soon…

"Dammit…" Steph sighs, wiping her sweaty brow and sitting down for a short rest, "Those Tauros ain't comin' back now. I hope you're happy, bug"

Paras clicks ashamedly to itself, not liking the nasty words that this trainer is using. The combination of thirst, pain and heat is taking its toll, however, and Paras soon finds itself feeling faint…

With afternoon sun bearing down from above, even Steph is starting to feel its effects. Sliding her rucksack from around her shoulders, she wades into it and extracts; a bottle of water.

"Damn it's hot…" she sighs, unscrewing the bottle and taking a lengthy draught from it. Meanwhile, Paras' eyes bulge at the sight of the water, and faced with a choice of do or die, it finds what little strength it has remaining and crawls out from underneath the rock. With the sun's heat even more excruciating on its frail skin, it slowly creeps up towards this trainer, and clicks wearily at her.

"Huh?" she murmurs, registering a small noise to her left, "Oh, it's you"

The little Paras stares at her hopefully as she moves to lower the bottle of water back into her rucksack. "What're you after?" she asks it, raising one eyebrow.

Paras simply clicks at her a couple more times, being its only form of communication, "Paraaaa…"

It slowly crawls towards her, with the aim of reaching her bag. Paras hopes that will indicate its dire need for water…

"Heyy, hands off the merchandise, bug!" Steph yells, pulling her bag away from it, "This is my stuff, got it?!"

Paras looks at her desperately, seeing her as its only source of help in this punishing heat, but a sense of futility overpowers the poor thing, and it gives up. Its legs splay out beneath it, and its eyes slowly close. Not having the strength to make it back to shade, Paras accepts its fate…

"Oh, play the guilt card huh?" Steph yells at it, nudging Paras with her hand, "Not gonna work, bug!"

Paras fails to respond, and Steph finally realises that it's not joking around.

"Ohh, you were after the water, weren't you?" She asks, scooping the bottle out of her bag once again, "This sunlight must be pretty horrible for you…"

She carefully pours some water out of the bottle into its cap, and places the cap next to Paras, "Here you go, bug. Drink up, OK?"

Paras' eyes open blearily, and it spots a small blue plastic thing, full of water!

The prospect of not dying motivates it, and it summons up enough energy to pull itself to its feet. It's tentative at first, seeing how this trainer has been rather nasty to it recently, but the allure of life giving water overpowers those inhibitions, and it tucks in with gusto!

"You're welcome" she chuckles, standing up and swinging her bag back across her shoulders, "Now you can stop buggin' me, OK?"

Paras finishes its water, and happily nudges the bottle cap towards Steph, staring up at her and clicking thankfully.

"Guess it's time to go find s'more pokémon…" she sighs, picking up the bottle cap and replacing it on top of the bottle, "Seeya 'round, bug"

Steph dashes off through the long grass, again in pursuit of wild pokémon to catch; only this time, she has a stealthy follower.

"Parr-ra!" Paras clicks cheerfully, scurrying off after her through the dense undergrowth.

* * *

Dylan's luck is just as poor as Steph's, as he is still having no success at finding a Dratini. After fishing up one Magikarp after another, his spirits are beginning to decline.

"C'mon, there's gotta be something _other_ than Magikarp in this damn pond?!" he yells, frustrated at the lack of activity on the end of his line.

"Oh, it'll be alright, Dylan…" Zoe tries to calm him down, taking a break from her studying to keep him company due to all of the common safari pokémon having vacated the immediate area, "I'm sure you'll find one today. And if not, we can just come back tomorrow, OK?"

She rests her hand on his shoulder in what she hopes is a comforting gesture, but what she said only frustrates him further.

"Agh, I don't wanna come back tomorrow!" he cries, casting his line out yet again, "That'd just be a waste of 500 more poke that I don't have!"

"Aww, don't be so down, Dylan!" says Zoe, "Dratini are rare, so finding one is sure to take a while. Just be a little more-"

"WHOA!"

Zoe's attempts to pacify Dylan have been interrupted by a sudden surge of water from the lake!

Spurred by this activity, Dylan leaps forwards and grabs the fishing rod with both hands, wrestling his catch to the surface!

"Whatever this is, it's BIG!" He roars, straining to reel in his latest victim.

"Ooh, yay!" Zoe cries, shuffling back a little to avoid being splashed, "Do you… need a hand?"

"Sh-should be fine!" Dylan puffs, watching his fishing rod bend from his catch's efforts, "Whatever you are, you're _mine!"_

With a grunt, he forces his fishing pole almost above his head, and both teens gasp in surprise as a colossal shadow rises from the depths of the lake…

As this pokémon towers above them both, all they can do for a moment is stare. "I-is that…?" Zoe mumbles, shuffling closer to Dylan and staring fixedly at the enormous red creature.

"…it is" Dylan sighs, throwing his rod to the ground, "God DAMMIT!"

"Karp! Karp!"

Dwarfing literally everything else in the immediate area, Dylan has managed to somehow prove and disprove his horrible luck at the same time by retrieving from the bottom of the lake; a _giant_ Magikarp!

Easily ten feet in height, it flails its fins limply, evidently still a weak specimen of pokémon.

"Wow, look at the size of it!" Zoe chuckles nervously, sweat-dropping and craning her neck skywards, "How on earth could a Magikarp grow that big?!"

"I don't know, nor do I care" Dylan sighs, wiping his brow, "All that wasted effort, too. OK, back you go, Magikarp!"

He waves the giant Magikarp away dismissively, expecting it to simply disappear to where it came from, but Magikarp does nothing of the sort. Instead, it just sits there, flails its fins a few more times, and _smiles_ at him…

"Aww, but I think it likes you!" Zoe giggles, daring to reach forwards and pat Magikarp's scales, and it flops about a little more at this new and unusual attention, "Besides, one this big could break a record, Dylan! I think you should catch it!"

"B-but I…" Dylan stammers, "But I don't _want_ a Magikarp!"

"Hey, our task as breeders is to bring out the best in pokémon, correct?" Zoe urges him with a playful nudge, "Well, this has to be one of the best Magikarp specimens out there! I've _never_ seen one this big. Even Fisherman Joe back home hasn't caught a Magikarp _this_ big!"

"…he hasn't?" Dylan murmurs, glancing up at the Magikarp, who still continues to stare at him with its eerie smile.

"Not as far as I know?" Zoe shrugs, "I reckon this would please the Day Care Man, too!"

"Hey, that's a point" Dylan finally begins to agree, pointing to nowhere in particular with both index fingers, "Ehh, alright. I guess I will catch it. I did say it was mine, after all…"

* * *

Meanwhile, an exhausted Steph drags her unwilling legs over a painfully steep hill, on her way back towards the entrance to finish up what she considers a highly unsuccessful expedition.

"Damn it all…" she curses, stumbling over an awkward grassy knoll, "All that, for _one_ pokémon?!"

Clutched stubbornly in her hand, she holds her one catch of the day; a Tangela. While she had her mind set on something like a Tauros or a Kangaskhan, lady luck just was not with her today. Since helping the poor Paras from earlier, things have just gone from bad to worse for Steph.

"Agh! Son of a…" she gasps, having the misfortune to graze her thigh on a nasty thicket on the way back down the hill. She kneels down to consult it, squeezing the surrounding skin to try and stop the bleeding, and notices a bright red shape in the distance, "Huh? What's that…?"

Raising her free hand to her forehead to block out the harsh sunlight, she glances off into the distance, and spies what appears to be a huge Magikarp disappearing in a flash of light!

"Whoa!" she gasps, "Holy crap, that was huge!"

Seeming to forget the pain in her leg, she scrambles down the hill again and through more long grass towards the lake from earlier.

However, when she gets there, she comes across an oddly serene sight; Zoe sitting next to Dylan, who still has his fishing line in the water. It's almost as if nothing had happened…

"H-hey…" she gasps, doubled over and clutching her chest to regain her breath, "D-did you guys see…?!"

"See?" Zoe asks, confused, "See what?"

"M-Magikarp!" Steph splutters, "GIANT Magikarp!"

She flails her arms outwards to try and gesture the size, and both Zoe and Dylan go "Ohhhh!" at the same time.

"…yeah. That was me" Dylan sighs, still somewhat despondent at his bad luck, "I hooked it, and Zoe insisted that I should catch it. So I did… eheh"

"…oh" Steph mumbles, straightening up again, "Makes sense, I guess…"

"Well, it was really big!" Zoe tries to encourage him, "It'll make the Day Care Man happy, I'm sure!"

"She's got a point" Steph agrees, "Like, if you guys are breeders, you want the biggest, strongest specimens for breeding stock, right?"

"We… don't normally need them" says Dylan, dangling his line in the water again, "Like, if you include a new line of genes into the breeding pool, you tend to produce some unwanted side effects…"

"Unwanted side effect?" Steph smirks, "Man, you make it sound like you're tryna breed the perfect race or something!"

"Well, that kinda is a breeder's ultimate goal?" Dylan counters, "Like, where's a 'for example'…?"

"Ooh, I know!" Zoe chips in, "You know how farmers breed their Mareep for bigger wool yields, for instance? Well, if you keep breeding the ones that have the biggest, fluffiest coats, they'll eventually produce offspring that are 'superior' in that aspect, but perhaps flawed in another. Does that work, Dylan?"

"Yeah, that's a good one Zo" Dylan chuckles, lifting a hand from his line for a moment to ruffle her hair. "But if you introduce new genes to that line of breeding, you could screw it up completely, and ruin what could be months of hard work. Make sense?"

"Ahh, I see it…" Steph mutters, raising a pensive hand to her chin, "Wow, there's a lot more to this breeding gig than I first expected"

"It's just second nature when you're used to it" Zoe chimes, glancing over the lake's calm surface, "But I convinced Dylan to catch that Magikarp because even if it isn't any useful for breeding purposes, it might just break a record!"

"I'll say" Steph nods, "That was HUGE!"

"All for nothing if I can't find a damn Dratini, though…" Dylan sighs, returning his attention to the lake, where there's still a whole lot of nothing happening, "I really don't wanna waste 500 poke on a _Magikarp_…"

"Well, I guess we can come back tomorrow as well, if you need it?" Steph suggests with a shrug, "I mean… you need a Dratini, otherwise you can't pass this exam thingy, don't you?"

"…you'd do that for me?" Dylan mumbles, dumbstruck at this notion. "I mean… 500 poke is pretty damn expensive…"

"Oh don't worry, you're payin' it back!" Steph sniggers, crashing down beside him, "So another 500 won't matter, cause if I have things my way, I'll be getting it back with interest!"

"…ah. Right" Dylan says, "Well, thanks for telling us that now instead of in a few weeks, after you'd have the chance to add some of that 'interest'"

"No problem!" Steph chuckles, grinning to herself with self-accomplishment, "So… how much longer you two gonna be?"

"No idea…" Dylan sighs, "Gotta find a damn Dratini first, and who knows how much longer that'll be?"

"I'm just waiting for Dylan to finish, really" Zoe shrugs, drawing circles on the dusty ground underneath her with her finger, ."All of the Safari pokémon seem to be getting ready to go to sleep now, so trying to study them would be rude, y'know?"

"Yeah, the place'll be closing soon" Steph analyses, looking towards the setting sun in the sky, "So I'd get ready to go soon, OK?"

"Aww…" Dylan sighs, "Having to come back here tomorrow and just repeat this whole process would REALLY suck"

Steph stands up again, and stretches her tired limbs, when at long last, Dylan's line sinks beneath the lake's surface!

"Yesss!" he cries, suddenly motivated to actually _do_ something, "_Please_ don't be another Magikarp…"

"What if it was another giant Magikarp to go with the one you caught?" Steph sniggers, resting against the rock behind him.

"Ooh, and this one could be a girl, so he can breed giant Magikarp!" Zoe giggles, in a rare display of teasing.

"Yeah, yeah, real funny…" Dylan sighs, watching both girls practically fall over with laughter, "I don't really wanna breed giant Magikarp, so it'd be nice if this one WASN'T!"

An almighty grunt has him tugging the line out of the water, and on the end of it shines a streak of blue, its shiny wet skin glinting in the waning light of the evening sun!

This streak of blue wrestles madly to escape from the line that has caught it, with a visible white underside to its long, serpentine body, two enormous black eyes, and another large white nose completing its features.

"Oh, finally!" he gasps, carefully reeling in his catch, so to not drop it back in the water, "A Dratini!"

"Driii!" Dratini squeaks, flailing wildly in an attempt to remove itself from the line. It severely dislikes being away from its home in the water, especially with the thought of being captured by this rude trainer, who invaded its home and snagged it with his painful fishing hook.

"Careful now…" Steph advises, watching Dratini thrash about ever more furiously, "It'll try to escape, given half a chance. I'd move it as far away from the lake as possible if I were you"

"…good idea!" Dylan grunts in agreement, struggling to hold onto the line due to Dratini's thrashing. He carefully swings his line around to tilt it away from the lake, where Dratini finally frees itself and flops softly onto the dry land of the safari zone.

"Riiight!" he gasps, wrenching himself onto his one foot and grabbing a crutch for support, "Let's do this!"

With his free hand, he pulls one of the many Safari Balls from its bag, "…how do I do this again?"

Steph's face literally falls into a state of sheer disbelief as she hears him say this. "…wut? Are you serious, dude?"

"Yes, I'm serious!" Dylan exclaims, staring confusedly at the capsule in his hand, "This is all new to me, remember?"

"You just throw it…" Steph sighs, her palm meeting her forehead with a painfully loud _thwack_.

"…oh. Heh…" Dylan chuckles embarrassedly, "That simple, huh?"

Keen to put his stupidity behind him, he follows orders and throws the Safari Ball. "You're mine, Dratini!"

"Draaaa!" Dratini growls, its eyes glinting with a territorial rage, "Tinii!"

With carefully executed timing, Dratini slaps Dylan's Safari Ball back at him with its tail, forcing him to swerve dangerously out of the way to stop it smacking him directly in the face!

"Whoa!" He cries in shock, as the Safari Ball smashes into a rock and shatters, "Why's this one so angry?"

"Heh, it's got a good aim, too!" Steph chuckles, watching the action unfold from a few feet away.

"Careful, Dylan!" Zoe calls, "This one seems different from your other Dratini!"

"Wonder if it's as gullible as my other Dratini…?" He mumbles inwardly, before acting on his brainwave, "Hey, what's that over there?!"

Just as he'd hoped, Dratini looks dumbly in the direction that he's pointing, "Drii?!"

It can't see anything even remotely suspicious; just the dark, orangey-purple hue of the evening sky. However, it instantly regrets falling for Dylan's feint, as the next thing it can see is the insides of a Safari Ball!

"Driiiii…!" it growls disdainfully, glowing crimson and disappearing into the capsule. It bounces softly on the grassy savannah, rolling about madly as its captive struggles furiously to escape.

"Damn, what energy!" Dylan gasps, watching the Safari Ball bounce around.

"I hope this works…" Zoe mumbles, "I think the Safari Zone's just about ready to close"

"Long as that ball closes, I'm fine" Dylan mutters, grabbing a second Safari Ball just in case, "If it doesn't, I'll just go for an ambush strategy instead, heh"

But fortuitously for him, his 'ambush strategy' isn't needed, as the ball clicks shut, surprising everyone.

"…wow" Steph mutters, "Didn't expect that. Not only did you actually _find_ a Dratini, but you caught it without much trouble, and even outsmarted the bugger!"

"Yeah, I was kinda surprised about that myself…" Dylan chuckles, stowing his second Safari Ball back in its container again, "But hey, I figured I'd give it a shot. I mean, what other options did I have, other than just repeatedly throwing balls at it?"

"Uhh, you could've baited it, or threw rocks at it instead?" Steph sniggers at his lack of knowledge, "Y'know, like I told you at the start?"

"You didn't tell us that?" Dylan mutters, despite not being entirely sure himself. He scoops up his new capture, albeit with some effort due to his bad leg.

"I didn't?" Steph asks, now confused as well, "…ah, well. Doesn't matter now, huh?"

She and Zoe catch up to Dylan, where Zoe over-excitedly cries, "Still, it's good that you've finally got a pokémon to train, huh Dylan?"

"Hah, yeah…" he mutters, pocketing his freshly caught Dratini and swinging his way towards the Safari Zone's exit on his crutches alongside the two girls, "That should be _fun_"

The attendants at the gate don't attempt to stop the three from leaving or anything, only waving them goodbye cheerfully, thus reassuring Steph that she had indeed counted out the right amount of money earlier.

"Long as you're patient, it will be" Steph advises, putting a realistic spin on his sarcasm as she farewells the Safari Zone attendants, "You hear me? Take things at _your_ pace"

"I know, I know…" Dylan sighs, "And lemme guess, you're gonna castrate me or something if I do it wrong?"

"Well, I wasn't _planning _on it" Steph sniggers, "But hey, if you're giving me an invitation, I'm sure I can work something out!"

"No no, that won't be necessary!" Dylan cries, correcting his mistake there and then. Not another word is spoken out of awkwardness until the trio can see the poke centre. The sun has well and truly set now, and the chill of night time is just starting to creep in.

"Hey, what about this boot you caught, Dylan?" Zoe suggests, straining to lift the thing up, "Should we reCYCle it or something?!"

"Huh?" Dylan mumbles, barely remembering about that boot. He notices it in Zoe's hands, and wonders exactly why she's having so much trouble carrying it.

"Yeah, I guess so…" he concedes with a shrug, "Hey, is it heavy or something? It's just a boot, right?"

"It is!" Zoe gasps, heaving the boot along with her, "B-but it's _really_ heavy!"

"Whaat?" Steph smirks, "Gimme that. You're probably just weak"

She snatches the boot from Zoe, and is nearly bowled forwards herself by the weight of the thing! "Whoa, what the hell?!"

"Maybe… there's stuff in it?" Dylan suggests with a shrug, and Steph obliges him, tipping the thing on its head. Unsurprisingly, a huge mound of seaweed tips out of it, but along with the seaweed; a large blob?

"What's that…?" Steph mutters, straining to pick up the wet and slimy blob. "Y-yup!" she gasps, barely lifting the thing, "This's what's responsible for the damn thing bein' so heavy!"

All three teens stare at the slimy blob in Steph's hands for a moment, wondering what it is. "It looks dirty…" Zoe suggests, searching in her bag for something to clean it with.

"You'd be dirty too, at the bottom of a lake for who knows how long?" Steph snickers, holding the thing with both hands to reduce the strain. Zoe finds a handkerchief in her bag, and judges that it's the best available thing to clean it with. Wiping away at the poke ball sized lump in Steph's hands, she eventually begins to polish off… a golden underneath?

"No way…" Steph gasps, her eyes widening further and further as the object is cleaned, showing more and more gold, eventually revealing…

"A nugget?!" all three teens gasp, staring in disbelief at the clean – yet still slightly grimy – lump of pure gold in Steph's hands!

"Well, there's your interest!" Dylan chuckles, "That's gotta be worth a few thousand at least!"

"Yeah, should just about cover it!" Steph sniggers, staring at it with awe.

"Nuh-uh!" Dylan objects, "You're getting _half_ of the money, got it?!"

"Alright, fine…" Steph laughs mirthfully, "But man, no wonder that boot was so damn heavy, huh?"

"I'll say!" Zoe agrees, picking up the now empty boot and depositing it into a nearby trash can, "Looks like you weren't so unlucky after all, hey Dylan?"

"I guess so" Dylan shrugs, looking back at the day's 'achievements'. Not only had he removed his sling at last, but caught himself the Dratini like he'd planned, as well as a _giant_ Magikarp. And now, to make things seem even better, the discovery of this golden nugget will undoubtedly push them in the right direction, as the trio will actually have some funds to travel with!

"C'mon, let's get this thing valued" Dylan suggests, and the three teens disappear into the nearby poke mart, the shiny gold nugget securely in Steph's hands.

* * *

**Author's note:**

**Man, this day's turning out a lot longer than I'd originally expected! O.o**

**This one isn't the most eventful of chapters, I will admit, but now that Dylan actually has one of his six pokémon, some more battling type stuff can actually happen!**

**Sorry for the horrible title. I literally couldn't think of anything better. D:**

**In the next chapter, you can expect the guys to meet up with Kasey and Miranda, and rather a lot of dialogue to end a long day with, as well as one last surprise from the Safari Zone.**

**Anyone wanna guess what it is? ;)**


	12. An Unexpected Guest

**Chapter Twelve: An Unexpected Guest**

"Wow, you guys sure were lucky to find this…" The sleepy poke mart attendant yawns, weighing their newly found nugget on a scale, "OK, judging by this weight and quality, I can offer you all 6100!"

"S-six _thousand_ poke?!" Dylan splutters, stunned almost beyond words, "Whoa!"

"Six thousand _one hundred_" Steph chips in, "Don't forget that one hundred!"

"Yeah…" The attendant chuckles awkwardly, "So, how do you want this? In credit, or cash, or…?"

"Cash please" Dylan answers, "Split it into three, if that's not asking too much?"

"Three?" Both girls question at the same time.

"Ohh, please, don't worry about me Dylan" Zoe insists, "I didn't find it"

"But you brought it back, Zo" Dylan points out, "If you hadn't, we wouldn't be here right now"

"B-but I don't want to take money from you, Dylan!" Zoe tries her best to politely decline, "You should just split it between the two of you, OK?"

"I'm fine with that" Steph smirks victoriously at the thought of 'earning' almost 2000 poke in interest.

"Aww, c'mon Zo. Please take it?" Dylan pleads, "Consider it payment for all the times you've helped me do stuff in the past week?"

"B-but I-" Zoe begins, before being interrupted by Steph.

"It won't split three ways anyway, dude" She buts in, "Just take the 3050 and be happy, OK?"

"No, Steph" Dylan deadpans, "The extra 100 can go to the store, as a tip or whatever. We're taking 2000 each. Got it?"

"Fine…" both girls reluctantly concede, and an eager shop assistant hands the three of them 2000 poke in notes each, "There you go, kids! Spend it wisely!"

"Thanks!" Dylan calls, exiting the shop with a flourish, two girls following after him.

"Would've preferred the 3050…" Steph grumbles, pocketing the money.

"I'd quit complaining if I were you" Dylan advises snidely, "You still made like 700 profit. Be grateful for once!"

"Alright, fine…" Steph sighs, deciding to just drop the subject. She glances to the purplish evening sky, and suggests, "Think we should head back to the poke centre now?"

"Yeah, that's a good idea!" Zoe agrees, depositing her 2000 poke in her purse, despite still believing that she doesn't deserve it, "Thanks Dylan! I'll spend it carefully!"

"Spend it on whatever you want, OK Zo?" Dylan manages a chuckle, "It's _your_ money"

* * *

A short walk later, back at the poke centre…

"Ohh, I hope Kasey and Miranda haven't forgotten about us!" Zoe shivers, ambling in through the sliding doors of the building.

"They shouldn't have…?" Dylan says, walking in after her, "I mean, it was only a couple of hours ago. I'm sure they can remember _that_ far back, heh"

"Kasey and Miranda…?" Steph stammers, "Who're they?"

"Ohh, just some friends of ours" Zoe enthuses, noticing the tell-tale locks of auburn hair amidst the groups of blondes and brunettes, "Hey, Miranda!"

"Wha?" A surprised Miranda grunts, jolted out of her mild, TV-induced daze by Zoe's calling, "Oh, hey there you two!"

"Y-you weren't waiting too long, were you?" Zoe asks timidly, rubbing her hands together from slight nerves.

"Nooo, not long at all!" Miranda chuckles airily, glancing at the clock, "I mean, we've only been here about a half an hour or so, haven't we Kasey?"

"Thirty two minutes, to be exact!" Another voice calls from behind a magazine. Putting down the copy of 'Evens' weekly', he stands up from the couch and stretches to his full, awkwardly tall height, "Not long at all, really! We were merely entertaining ourselves, awaiting your arrival!"

"Oh, that's good news!" Zoe chimes, weaving through the crowds to approach the two.

"God, you're multiplying!" An exasperated Steph gasps, "Just how many of you are there?!"

"Nine in total" Dylan explains, edging towards the other three, albeit with a lot more difficulty due to limited space and crutches, "But the other guys have all gone off to other places, don't worry"

"Oh, that's a relief" Steph chuckles, "I was getting worried that I might have to ferry all of you around the frickin' country, eheh…"

"…who's this?" An apprehensive Miranda asks, somewhat intimidated by this new, vulgar person.

"Ohh, this is Steph!" Zoe says to her, realising that she and Kasey hadn't met her yet, "She's helping us!"

"Helping you?" Kasey feels the need to ask, "How, may I ask, is she helping you both?"

"Well, she's helping us find our pokémon!" Zoe chimes, "Because of her, I've got a Poliwag now, and Dylan caught himself a Dratini just a little while ago!"

"Ohh, so _that's_ why you requested my fishing rod earlier?" Kasey surmises, "I'm glad to hear that something good came of it. Did you return the rod to the attendants at the gate?"

"Re…turn?" Dylan mumbles, and he and Zoe exchange an awkward glance, "…oops"

"It'll be _fine_, don't worry" Steph reassures them both, "They employ guys to retrieve the rental stuff, just in case idiots forget to return them"

"Oh, that's a relief!" Zoe gasps, brushing some hair out of her eyes, "S-so, who wants some food?"

"Finally!" An overenthusiastic Dylan exclaims, swinging his way over towards the flappy doors of the cafeteria and pushing one open with his crutch, "I thought you'd never ask!"

Fuchsia City is far calmer in the late evening than it is during the lunchtime rush, and while that has made things a lot easier for the group of five young adults, it would still be a gross understatement to describe it as anything less than 'hectic'.

While five people can easily feed themselves with little trouble, things become complicated when there are several pokémon to feed as well, most of which have recently been caught, and none of which really know the other.

"H-hey, careful Mocha!" Zoe cries, moving swiftly to stop her Minccino from being splattered with ink, courtesy of Kasey's freshly caught Horsea. Mocha only wishes to make Horsea's acquaintance, what with it being a new and interesting pokémon. However, Horsea doesn't seem so keen on being subjected to too many new visitors at once, still having trouble dealing with the fact that it's no longer a wild pokémon.

"Min-min?" Mocha babbles, looking up at her owner with perplexion.

"Sorry honey…" Zoe sighs, placing her down again, "But it looks like Horsea doesn't want to play. Maybe you can play with Cory instead?"

"Mmmmin!" Mocha exclaims, raising her arms excitedly and instead charging off to 'introduce' herself to Dylan's Dratini. Having taken poorly to being captured, Dratini is busy distancing itself from the rest of the crowd - including its new owner - grumpily picking at the selection of pellets and berries that its owner has 'offered' it. The sight of an overexcited Minccino running towards it, arms outstretched, is quite possibly the last thing it wants right now. A warning growl goes unheeded, so when Mocha moves to pick Dratini up for a 'welcome' hug…

"M'aaah!?" Mocha squeals, rushing back towards Zoe with a fresh bruise on her head, "Chi-chino-min?!"

"Ohh, Mocha…" Zoe sighs, shaking her head fondly and picking her Minccino up again, "You went to go see Dratini, didn't you?"

"…minnn" Mocha sniffs, nodding her head solemnly and rubbing her bruise.

"Dratini's not ready to make friends yet, OK?" Zoe soothes Mocha, bringing the little Minccino to her chest and hugging her, "So you've got to be a little more careful, got it?"

"Minchi?" Mocha gabbles, nodding fervently once again. Her spirits bounding back to her as if nothing had happened, she wriggles out of her owner's grip and decides to instead see if the Tangela wants to be her friend.

Cautiously toddling past a relaxed Ataro, Mocha approaches the last of the new pokémon somewhat warily, having learned from her previous experiences. Tangela looks up from its bowl of pellets, and spies an overly inquisitive Minccino padding her way towards it. Weary of the thought of yet more strangers invading its life, it prepares to edge away and avoid the Minccino the best it can. However, Mocha's infectious affections towards everything has her cuddling up to this green mass of mossy tentacles before it can so much as move!

"Tang….gah?!" Tangela gasps, more than slightly surprised at the actions of this strange pokémon. Stuck in a completely alien situation, it flails its little feet madly in an attempt to escape, but to no avail; "Gaaaaaah!"

"Whoa, whoa, calm down now Spaghetti!" Steph chuckles, almost choking on the bacon she was crunching up as she notices the state her Tangela has gotten itself into. Leaving her food for a moment, she slides from her chair in an attempt to console her new pokémon.

"Heyyy, here girl. Come have some nice berries?" she suggests, trying to entice Spaghetti the Tangela with a handful of the pink Pecha Berries that she had neglected from her bowl. Spaghetti glances over to the handful, sweatdrops at the thought of nasty Pecha Berries, and lets out a sigh at the situation she's in. The way she sees it, she's not sure which is the less of the two evils; being hugged by a strange, almost obnoxiously enthusiastic Minccino, or being forced to eat Pecha Berries by her unaware owner.

"Hmm, what's wrong? You don't want these berries?" Steph asks, shaking the ones she's holding for added effect, "Or is that Minccino just being annoying?"

Mocha's giggling is quickly quelled as Steph prizes her from Spaghetti the Tangela, causing the tentacle monster to sigh with relief.

"Present" She deadpans, dropping a sullen Mocha on Zoe's lap, "You've gotta keep better watch of her, OK? Spaghetti didn't like being hugged much…"

"Ohh, so _that's_ where you'd wandered off to, Mocha?" Zoe asks her Minccino, who recoils at the less-than-pleased tone of her owner.

"I know you like making friends, honey…" she soothes, stroking Mocha's fur, "But you can't just throw yourself into it, OK? What if Spaghetti attacked you, like Dratini did? That wouldn't have been nice, would it?"

"Min-nah…" Mocha sighs, giving up on Operation Friendship for now and simply reverting to her usual pastime; platting her owner's hair.

"Just stay here for a while, OK girl?" Zoe asks Mocha with a small hug. "Sorry about that Steph…" she mumbles, "I didn't think Mocha would try to befriend your Tangela after what Dratini did to her…"

"Hey, don't worry about it!" Steph gabbles through a mouthful of assorted foods, pointing her fork in Zoe's direction as if to clarify who she's talking to, "It kinda helped me learn a bit about Spaghetti too, so it's no biggy"

"Heh, Spaghetti…" Zoe giggles, mixing her mash potatoes and spaghettios together with glee, "I like that name. It's so simple, yet plays on a subtle metaphor at the same time"

"That, and she looks like Spaghetti" Steph deadpans, whitewashing over Zoe's long winded explanation with a blunt rhetoric.

"Eheh, yeah…" Zoe mumbles, hiding the fact that that was exactly what she meant behind a self-conscious head scratch, "So, Dylan, have you thought of a nickname for Dratini yet?"

"Whungh?" he muffles, a strip of what looks like steak hanging out of his mouth, "I…unno?"

A forced swallow has some of the cow hide tumbling down his throat, and he splutters an answer, beating his chest all the while to try and clear his windpipe of the food he's just inhaled. "Haven't… really thought of a nick…name?!"

"Aaww, that's a shame" says Zoe, cutting off a bit of sausage and scooping up some mash-spaghetti mix with it, "I like nicknames. They make your pokémon… _yours_, y'know?"

"Well…" Dylan hesitates, glancing towards his Dratini, who's still moodily avoiding contact with anyone, pokémon or otherwise. "I'll give it a think, OK?"

"If you need help, just ask!" Zoe obliges a little too excitedly, "Oh hang on… where's your Magikarp?"

"Huh? Dylan mutters, confused again, "Ohh, right. He's a bit big to feed in here, isn't he?"

"Aww true, I guess so… Zoe chuckles lightly, imagining the situation of Dylan attempting to feed a ten foot tall Magikarp in his current state. Thoroughly amused by that thought, she decides to try someone else, "W-what about you, Kasey? Have you given Horsea a nickname yet?"

"Well, umm…" Kasey mutters, concentrating harder than he should be on his pair of sausages, trying to cut them into exactly evenly sized pieces, "I-I haven't as of yet, no" he concedes, "But I have considered some possibilities?"

"Oh?" Zoe enquires, grabbing Miranda's interest as she does so, "Do tell!"

"Well, I've just discovered that my Horsea is indeed a male, which I find fitting for their evolutionary line" Kasey explains, with illustrious hand gestures to boot, "And given that Horsea are based on seahorses, I thought that perhaps there would be a famous racehorse I could name him after?"

"Ooh, like Sea biscuit?" Miranda chips in, shepherding a half a dozen or so peas onto her fork, "Sea biscuit was a really famous racehorse?"

"That could most definitely work!" Kasey laughs, his eyes shining with inspiration, "I thank you, Lady Miller!"

"Please Kasey, call me Miranda already!" she giggles, "There's no need for formalities! I'm no lady!"

"Oh, but you are, fair maiden!" Kasey smiles obliviously, causing Miranda to roll her eyes from a combination of exasperation and mirth, due to receiving what she feels is an undeserved compliment.

"The other idea I had…" Kasey continues, spearing the edges of both of his two sausages onto his fork at once, "Is naming him after a dragon of some description. Because you know how Horsea are part dragon? Their final evolution, Kingdra, also has 'King' in it, so a royal dragon would also be rather fitting, don't you all think?"

"Sounds a bit… extreme, if you ask me" Steph grunts, shovelling egg into her mouth, "Nicknames lose their impact if you've gotta spend a week explainin' them"

"…Oh" Kasey stumbles, at a loss for words, "Perhaps… perhaps you have a point there" he glances over towards Steph, who's making no effort to behave in a ladylike manner, like Kasey believes all females should. Unable to find an appropriate response, he simply settles for, "…Miss"

"And I've gotta ask" she exclaims with a swallow, "What's with the endless complimenting? The way you talk and dress and stuff, it's like you're training to be a butler or something. Shouldn't you be in some fancy mansion right now, happily taking orders from some pompous bigwig?"

"Steph!" Zoe gasps, dropping her fork in surprise, "That wasn't very nice!"

"Hey, I'm sure we were all thinkin' it!" Steph retorts, pointing at Zoe with her fork, "I was just sayin' what we were all thinkin'!"

"W-well…" Kasey mumbles, somewhat nervous due to his personal life being a little out of his comfort zone, as far as conversation is concerned. "The truth is, I am indeed a butler in training. That was very attentive of you, Miss uhh…"

"Steph" She bluntly mutters in response, "Just Steph, OK? None of that 'Miss' crap"

Kasey nods and opens his mouth a few times as his response, as if the words were are in his mind, but not quite able to find their way from his mind to his mouth where they belonged. "B-bleh!" he eventually splutters, having finally found his tongue, "My apologies! I was brought up in Pokemon Mansion in Sinnoh, where both of my parents served as the chef and maid. Because of this, I grew up knowing only to serve others, and my Mother and Father decided that it would be a good idea if I left on a pokémon training journey. I did indeed give pokémon training a good go, because it was my parents' wish after all, and I didn't want to let them down!"

"O…K?" Steph mumbled, flummoxed, "And you're now a breeder because…?"

"Oh, well that's simple!" Kasey laughs airily, "While I loved the aspect of training pokémon, I didn't enjoy the battling that came with it. Watching your pokémon become heinously injured, all under the pretence of getting 'stronger'… i-it disgusted me. So after about a year, I gave up pokémon training in the hopes of finding a way to train and strengthen pokémon without forcing them to battle. It was with that motivation that I stumbled across the wonders of pokémon breeding. You can bring out the best in a pokémon without subjecting them to the horrible injuries they would sustain during battle!"

"Ohh, I see…" Miranda nods, understanding where Kasey's coming from, "So I guess you could say that those two different sides of pokémon training were like two different aspects of your own life in a way, huh?"

"…eh?" Kasey blinks, confused, "I am puzzled as to what you mean, dear?"

"Look at it this way" Miranda explains, holding her knife and fork upright to serve as makeshift props, "On one side, you've got your pokémon battles. You hated this because it was the harsh reality of life, where there was no sugar coating. If you wanted to eat, you had to _force_ your pokémon to battle. You couldn't even respawn! Eheh…"

"Uhh, re…spawn?" Kasey asks, once again mystified.

"Ohh, it's a gaming thing, don't worry" Miranda chuckles self-consciously, and steers conversation back on track. "Now, let's take a look at breeder Kasey" she continues, bobbing her fork up and down on the table, "Here, you can find out how to improve a pokémon's strength without making them battle, meaning they won't suffer, while people pay you for the breeding services you offer, which all but guarantees food and a bed for the night, right? It's a more widespread approach to the pokémon experience, but it comes with the downside of the sugar coating… lack of reality problem. It's essentially the sheltered life you had back when you were with your parents, agree?"

"Ohh, I see it!" Zoe giggles, pointing to Miranda's 'props', "The fork is Kasey's sheltered life because it offers a _wider_ perspective, while the knife is his battling life because it symbolises the violence and no jokes lifestyle that's necessary, but faced with the possible chance of failure, and subsequently going hungry. Very clever!"

"Ohh, you saw it huh?" Miranda smiles, lowering her cutlery again, "Yeah, I was kinda proud of it too. But you missed something!"

"Huh? I did?" Zoe remarks, surprised, "W-what'd I miss?"

"You need both to eat" Dylan adds in, actually feeling intelligent for once, "Like, if you look at it literally, you'll have trouble eating with just a knife OR a fork, but if you've got both of them, it's easy as pie. And everyone likes pie. But in terms of the metaphorical side of things, she's saying you need to see both perspectives to succeed; two different sides of the same existence…"

Kasey simply sits there, confused, while Steph just blinks at the four of them, "Nerds. I ask why the guy's a butler, and you all turn it into some philosophical discussion with metaphors and symbolism and crap? What the actual hell?"

Steph stands up from the table, scoops up her used crockery, and whisks it away to the high-rise pile of dirty dishes across the room. She believes she's had enough existentialism for the day.

"W-wow…" Kasey breathes, stunned, "I have never looked at it from that angle before! Perhaps pokémon breeding is just yet another surrogate for the sheltered life I miss from my days as a trainee butler, after all…"

"But… I think that's why the Day Care Man sent us all out on this big trip" Zoe chimes, making sure to give Mocha's head fur a playful ruffle, "I mean, of course, we need to find those pokémon we bred, but on top of that, we need to find _ourselves_"

"Hmm…" Dylan mumbles, not quite convinced, "Are you sure? It seemed to me like he just made all that up on the spot, y'know? Like he was trying to get rid of us, almost"

"Oh nooo, don't be silly, Dylan!" Zoe chuckles, "Why would he do that? He just wants us to see the world and make sure we're following the right paths, I'm sure of it!"

"But… didn't you say that we should follow our own paths in life just the other day?" Dylan says, recalling from about a week back, "And that there isn't any predetermined path for us to take?"

"I think it's more complex than that" Zoe suggests, giving into her urge and drawing a huge, dopey smiley face into her mash potato with her knife, "While I do think there's an ideal path for us all, we have to make our own way in life to _find_ it first. And that's what the Day Care Man sent us out to do; find our place in life!"

"Ohh, I see…" Dylan cottons on, standing up from the table now that he's finished his steak and fries, "The puzzle thing again, huh?"

"Yes indeedy!" Zoe smiles, abandoning the remains of her meal and also standing up, a braid of her hair now woven into a tidy, intricate plat "And you never know where you might fit in, so you have to search everywhere, test things out, and-"

"And it could be closer than you think!" Steph jumps in, interrupting Zoe's sentence and finishing with one of her own, "See? I can speak nerd too. You guys all done now?"

"Uhh… pretty much?" Dylan replies with a simple shrug, "What about you guys?"

He glances over to Miranda and Kasey, both of whom have nearly empty plates.

"Almost…" Miranda mutters, stubbornly persisting in trying to spear her last pea onto the end of her fork. Despite her best efforts, she keeps catching the wrong side of the pea, and it rolls away from her fork with each and every attempt.

The other four just stare at her blankly, watching as this young girl simply refuses to be beaten by the tiny vegetable.

"Agh! Just use your damn knife already!" Steph roars after about a minute of awkwardly silent staring, "You've been here forever!"

"Aww, have I gotta?" Miranda sighs, relenting at last and using her knife to scoop that last pea onto her fork, "Where's the fun in that?"

"Being able to finish your meal and do other crap" Steph deadpans, "C'mon already!"

"...S-sorry" she stammers, hurriedly collecting her crockery and disposing of it, "I didn't mean to hold you guys up…"

"Wait, wait wait wait Miranda!" Zoe cries, placing her hands on the girl's shoulders, "It's fine, don't worry. Steph wasn't mad at you or anything, she's just impatient! Right, Steph?"

"Yeah, sure…" Steph sighs, far from approving this new label of 'impatient'. But Miranda's visible insecurity begins to bubble over, and Steph realises that perhaps she was a little harsh there; "…sorry, kid. I was kinda nasty there. I'm not mad at you or anything, honest"

"Y-you're not?" Miranda mumbles, holding her hands to her mouth from anxiety, "But… why the angry words if you're not angry?"

"It's like Zoe said…" she sighs, brushing her fringe from her eyes, "I'm just… impatient"

Slowly withdrawing both of her pokémon, she walks away from the table towards the main poke centre, she mutters angrily to herself, "And vulgar, and loud, and socially inept, and I always say stupid shit, and-"

"Aww, c'mon Steph!" Zoe pleads, not wanting her to stomp off upset over a little misunderstanding, "Wait up a sec!"

Zoe dashes in front of Steph and tries to slow her down by placing her hands against Steph's shoulders and dragging her feet for all her tiny weight is worth.

"Get off get off get OFF!" Steph barks, resisting a dark desire to just push the girl away, "I have a personal space bubble, dammit!"

"O-OK…" Zoe mumbles, slowly retrieving her arms, "Please don't run away?"

"…what's it matter if I do?" Steph grumbles, her averted stare barely even visible, "None of you guys like me anyway…"

"I-I do?" Zoe says, causing Steph to look at her in sheer astonishment, "I mean, you saved my life for starters, and I like how honest you are! You don't try to sugar coat things, a-and that's good!"

"Then why do I keep upsetting everyone?" Steph mumbles self-consciously, in serious danger of showing some actual emotions here, "Pretty sure you don't _like_ being insulted and crap"

"You just need to think before you speak" Dylan chips in, swinging his way over to the two and standing next to Zoe, "You can be really nice when you wanna be. You've just gotta bring that side out a little more, OK?"

"You two must be crazy or something…" Steph huffs, spinning around to confront Miranda and Kasey. "What about you guys?"

"Y-you didn't upset me, honest!" Miranda mumbles, "I-I just get spooked easily, that's all!"

"I… really like how symmetrical your face is!" Kasey announces rather awkwardly, "And your cheekbones are rather prominent! That's really quite admir-"

Steph's eye twitches, and even Kasey takes the hint that perhaps now is not a good time to talk. In spite of the fact that he was simply attempting to cheer the girl up in the only way he knew how – honest compliments – he's noticed that this attempt hasn't exactly gone to plan…

"God, you're all weird…" Steph sighs, hanging her head again, "What madness have I gotten myself into?"

"We're all weird, Steph…" Zoe tries to reassure her, with noises of agreement coming from the other three, "That's what makes us us! Like, how can there be a normal if everyone's different?"

A small smile tugs at Steph's lips, and Zoe smiles too. Zoe doesn't attempt to hug her, knowing better, but Zoe's smile slowly fades when Steph mutters, "You're in my way. Both of you"

Exchanging a nervous glance, Zoe and Dylan part, knowing there's nothing more they can do. Without a second glance, she slowly walks between the pair of them and through the cafeteria doors.

In the middle of the main room, she stops, hands shaking, and spins around again; "Well, what're you lemons waiting around for? Gonna have a slumber party in the cafeteria or somethin'?"

Steph charges up the stairs towards her and Zoe's shared room, and she and Dylan glance towards each other again.

"She's so confusing…" Zoe mumbles, completely lost over Steph's ways, while Dylan says "She is who she is, right?"

"Right!" Zoe agrees, and the group of four collect their respective things, ready for sleep at last. Dylan returns his Dratini to its poke ball, not wanting to risk injury by leaving it out and trying to carry it, while Kasey suffers a splattering of ink courtesy of his Horsea before also withdrawing him, and Zoe decides to carry Cory the Poliwag instead of Mocha the Minccino, due to Mocha being able to walk perfectly well.

"You should join Steph and I in our room, Miranda!" Zoe suggests to her as she rummages around in her bag for her room key, "We've got three beds in there?"

"Ohh, that probably makes it easier for you guys too, huh?" Miranda asks the nurse, handing the key back, "Because it gives you another room to rent out if you need it"

"Oh, thanks!" The attending nurse beams, receiving the key gratefully, "Yes, there is quite a lot of pressure on rooms at times, so freeing up another one is a big help!"

"No problem!" Miranda smiles, glancing over to Kasey and Dylan, "W-what about you guys?"

"Well, uhh…" Dylan mumbles, not exactly keen on sharing a room with another male, "I kinda like the freedom of having a room to myself…"

"And I'm pleased with having two spare beds in my room!" Kasey says, shrugging lightly, "Because it means I can therefore sleep in the middle one to preserve the balance!"

"But if you share, that would mean you could have two _full_ beds instead of two empty ones, and have the middle one empty instead?" Zoe suggests, trying to appease as many parties as possible.

"B-but that would require making a third bed dirty!" Kasey gasps, shocked, "I-I wouldn't be able to handle that…"

"Aww, OK…" Zoe chuckles, defeated, "Maybe not, then…"

"I'm fine with that" Dylan shrugs, negotiating his way up the stairs while on crutches, "MAN I hate stairs…"

"They're a lot easier now though, huh?" Zoe says, once again proving her optimism as the group of four ascends a floor. Zoe and Miranda stop outside her room, and two girls wave to two young men.

"Seeya tomorrow, guys!" Miranda calls, while Zoe attempts to manipulate the tiny bronze key into the lock, failing to realise that the door isn't even locked until Miranda points it out, "…oh"

"G'night you two" Dylan calls, lifting up one arm – and crutch with it – to wave back to them. The two males continue down the same hallway before muttering curt words of farewell to each other and splitting off into different paths, entering their own rooms. Kasey spends a great deal of time organising his day clothes, night clothes and bedclothes into their appropriate places, while contemplating letting his newly caught Horsea out of his poke ball so that he can sleep on one of the spare beds. However, the thought of disturbing the 'balance' of the room, combined with the fact that Horsea might get upset and spit ink everywhere, convinces him not to.

Dylan on the other hand just shrugs off his day clothes, leaving them in a pile on the floor and planning on sleeping in just his boxer shorts.

"Now, if I let you out, will you promise to not hurt me or something?" he mumbles to his Dratini's poke ball, knowing not whether or not it will actually yield results.

"Better not" he tells himself, sliding under the sheets of the bed and realising that he's left the light on, "…dammit"

Looking around, the young man gets 'resourceful' by throwing the alarm clock at the light switch. The clock smashes into pieces as it hits the wall, but with the wobbly noise of springs flying out everywhere, the room is lost in darkness, indicating that he actually hit his target.

"Heh. Solved two problems at once" he chuckles in a self-satisfied manner, placing Dratini's poke ball on the table and rolling over to go to sleep.

Back in the girls' room, however…

"Wow, today's been a really long day, huh?" Zoe mumbles sleepily to Steph, snuggling up to both Cory and Mocha in the near darkness of the room.

"I'll say" Steph agrees with a yawn, "But we've done a lot today, so I guess it would feel like that"

"And now that Dylan's arm has healed, we can start travelling to places!" Zoe cries, dropping her voice again as she realises that there are likely many people in the building who are trying to sleep, "…oops"

"Heh, yeah…" Steph mutters, "It'll be good to see new places again. Haven't left Fuchsia in _ages_. What about you, kid?" she asks Miranda, "Where're you heading?"

But all she gets from Miranda as a response is a soft snoring, indicating that Miranda has already fallen asleep.

"…wow" Steph mutters, "How can someone fall asleep that easy?"

"G-guess we should quiet down now too, huh?" Zoe mumbles timidly, not wanting to disturb Miranda's rest.

"Probably a good idea, yeah…" Steph chuckles, biting back the urge to say something sarcastic. Instead, she takes on a serious tone, "H-hey, Zo?"

"…yeah?" Zoe responds, slightly confused that Steph's still talking after saying that they should be quiet now.

"Just wanted to say thanks for earlier" Steph mutters, turning over in bed and patting a sleeping Spaghetti atop her head, "For… getting in the way and stuff. If you guys didn't stop me, who knows where I might've run off to…"

"Aww, it's OK!" Zoe cries, albeit quietly this time, "It really shows that it _can_ be good sometimes though, huh?"

"…heh" Steph chuckles, a tear actually slipping from her eye with the thought. Immensely relieved that no one can see this, she mumbles, "I guess it does…"

And with that notion, two girls finally retire to a night of well-deserved sleep.

* * *

However…

Unheeded by the three sleeping teenagers, the zipper on Steph's rucksack slowly opens itself, and a small creature climbs out of it!

Careful to not disturb anything, this small creature negotiates its way onto the bed above it via the overhanging bedclothes, and curls up into a little ball on top of the sleeping human's chest. It clicks happily to itself, at the thought of making a new friend, and slowly drifts off to sleep as well…

* * *

**Author's note:**

**God, this day's finally over!**

**Who would've thought it'd take ~18,500 words to discuss one day? O.o**

**However, I'd like to think it was a fairly action packed day, and the storyline can finally progress a little now, due to Dylan being (somewhat) mobile, and both he and Zoe having at least one pokémon to use. I also liked writing in a new side to Steph. Just figured I'd let you all see that she does have feelings, heh. xD**

**Feel like dropping me a review? I'd really like it if you did. :3**


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